Threads of Life
by DunmerFromAldRuhn
Summary: Battle on the bridge is a near draw, Kakashi is unconscious and Zabuza is too weak to deal with Gato's thugs. With help of some unusual circumstances and guilt over loosing his teammates Naruto becomes a ninja of Iwa. Please TRY reading it.
1. Chapter 1: Chains of Guilt

-xxxx-

A Slave of Emotions

Chapter 1: Chained by Guilt

-xxxx-

Dreams and hopes are fragile things; they can be easily shattered with a strong blow. The bridge connecting Wave country to the mainland was supposed to be the embodiment of the dreams of its citizens. But no matter how someone might look at this, now the bridge was the road leading to the bloody end of that dream.

Humans are as fragile as their dreams are. It's easy to hurt or kill them. It doesn't matter whether someone destroys humans' dream with a careless stroke of pen signing a paper or by a forceful slash of blade. The lives are just as fragile as the dreams are; they are just as easy to destroy as well.

Gatou didn't care about those things, not lives, not dreams, not even the Wave country. His mind was focused on one thing: profit and how big could he make it. It was natural that his goals were conflicting with the building of the bridge. To attain his goal the man hired a former Swordsman of the Hidden Mist, Momochi Zabuza.

Ninja were considered good weapons that helped people reach their goals. He was awed just how ineffective they can be. The Demon of the Mist, Zabuza was nearly defeated when his luck took a day off. The result was still quite good, though. The old bridge builder was dead, all enemy ninja were unconscious and one of them was probably dead. It was time to salvage their trophies.

The fact that Zabuza managed to escape still angered him a lot, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Although he would need to find new bodyguards, since should Zabuza want vengeance for betraying him and not paying for the job well done it wouldn't be pretty.

One of his mercenaries came to him and asked pointing to the direction of four Konoha ninja. "What should we do to those who are alive?"

Gatou just shrugged and walked away from the bridge to the boat he had arrived on.

The mercenary turned to one of his own leaders and asked the same question. The answer was quite predictable. "The white haired one is a grown ninja, it'll be difficult to keep him imprisoned. Just throw him down from the bridge, do the same to the black haired kid. He's probably dead already. Take the remaining girl and the blond; we'll sell them if the short guy doesn't want anything to do with it. Yeah, and make sure they're not tied but given shackles."

-xxxx-

An hour before

-xxxx-

Kakashi's hand was tightly held by Zabuza's apprentice. The boy was already dead but even that way he still acted like his master's perfect tool. Serving him to the very end must have been the boy's only goal. The white haired man was an experienced and skilled ninja but this boy's iron grip seemed to become even stronger when he finally died.

The man could see Zabuza grinning behind his bandages. Then he laughed, the laugh sounded strange. It was somehow a bit forced but still had honest amusement in it, like Zabuza had mixed feelings about the boy's deed. The nuke-nin spoke in a dark voice. "Great job… Haku."

The former mist nin's hand reached out for his blade and the white haired man understood what he was planning. Cutting through both of them was the most efficient way to end this fight as fast as he can. Zabuza with his level of strength and as exhausted as he was couldn't defeat Kakashi now in one on one fight.

The blade came down faster than copycat expected. He was almost sure that the missing nin would say something. He was quite talkative up to this point. But maybe Haku's death affected him more than he thought.

Kakashi had no time to waste as he jumped back as fast as he could with a dead body limiting his movement. But it was still too slow, the cut that Zabuza made was too deep to move effectively and now he was probably in a worse position than the opponent was before that attack. His jounin jacket fell down. The place where the other man cut it was drenched in blood. The boy that was gripping copycat's hand was cut in two parts too.

Zabuza rushed at him again. With the wound Kakashi got from the mist swordsman, his speed would be subpar now. There was no chance he could effectively evade the incoming strike. All he had left is try to block it, but he didn't have anything to black with. He couldn't use Haku's body since it was already just two chunks of dead meat.

The best he could do is to hope to redirect the blade so it wouldn't cut through him but just leave a small wound. When the sword finally made its way to Kakashi, the man punched it upwards. It was do or die if he failed he would either get a new very deep wound or just simply lose half of his head along with brains residing there.

He succeeded in redirecting it but the wound became worse than it was. The blood was pouring from it without a stop. He could feel his strength leaving him. He needed to finish it before he lost his consciousness.

He never had great stamina and it wouldn't ever change. He was, is, and would be a precise type of shinobi that would finish his work quickly before he even had a chance to exhaust himself. Now the mist nin was directing the battle, even if Kakashi tried attacking it won't matter. And if he tried to defend it would make the matters even worse than they were.

He couldn't afford dying now. He had his students, he couldn't be certain that they could escape from the bridge if he died. Although he could try to fake his death and jump back in action when he was really needed. He knew he could fail in that, but that was better than just dying now.

Kakashi could not predict the strength of the next attack though. He was sure he could make it appear as though he was dead, but it was much faster and powerful than he expected. The blow was enough to throw him into the state of unconsciousness.

-xxxx-

One the day after the bridge events, Naruto and Sakura were sold to some kind of slave traders. Those slave traders branded them both like a livestock. They had a little difficulty with the boy because of his regeneration but given enough tries, the brand became somewhat visible.

Then both of them and more slaves were transported to a city where auction was held. Sakura was sold off somewhere on the first day. For a month the boy was stuck in the cage like an animal in the Zoo. No one wanted to buy a little scrawny kid, but then came a group of people who bought all of the remaining slaves to work in some kind of ore mines.

The road to those mines was quite long. It took them a week of normal civilian pace to get there. All male slaves that were older than ten years were sent to mine that ore. Female slaves were given a little easier work but it was still that kind of work that would be considered hard even for men if they weren't slaves.

It seems that people who bought him were selling the ore that was capable of conducting chakra. For two months, he was mining that ore two hundred meters under the ground. After Sakura was sold, Naruto couldn't find strength in himself to try to run away from here. But it seems his ridiculous stamina was beginning to draw attention of the guards.

The boy kept thinking of what could've happened if things at the bridge took a different turn. It was useless right now though. Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke were probably dead and no one from Konoha knew where to look for him and Sakura, so the help probably wouldn't come. He had to accept it; nothing could be changed now that he was a prisoner of his own guilt. On the first day when everyone was branded, he and Sakura tried to run away but failed.

If he was a better ninja he could have somehow prevented it from failing but he wasn't. Knowing it kept killing him, he couldn't get any sleep during the first two months of his enslavement. The blond couldn't lie to himself, that feeling of guiltiness prevented him from running away or trying something else like that.

The boy turned his head to source of some kind of commotion just two levels above him. It appeared that someone tried to attack the guard and try to run away. He shook his head in disappointment, the ninja like him would've had a chance but there was no way that that person could be a ninja. As for Naruto himself, he just didn't want to.

The guards kept coming down and down, after five minutes, they were on his level and seemed to have intent of approaching him. The boy didn't stop his work knowing that he would be in trouble if he did. Swinging the mining pick was not as hard as walking up the tree using your chakra to stick to it so he didn't mind that work.

The men approached him and the leader spoke. "Come with us, the mistress wants to see you."

Naruto laid his pick and obediently followed the guards. As he was walking, the leader started talking again. "You will call her Kaya-sama, if you have to address her. Don't even think of insulting her."

-xxxx-

Kaya was a woman in her mid-twenties that was sitting behind a large desk. She had short black hair and dark colored eyes. She wasn't particularly beautiful but nor was she ugly, just about average for her age. Although the boy had to admit that the makeup probably flattered her a lot. She wore clothes that a rich civilian from Konoha would be usually wearing. Nothing too flashy since it was a ninja village but something the quality of which was very, very good.

The woman scowled seeing him and spoke in a commanding voice. "Name?"

"Uzumaki Naruto." She was a little taken aback by the name but the boy didn't notice it.

Her expression softened a little but she still was scowling as if she smelled something really bad. Naruto guessed that he might have smelled like trash pile but it didn't bother him for a long time already. The woman asked him the next question. "Place of origin?"

"Konoha." Her expressing changed to something that seemed like 'as expected' from someone good at planning.

Kaya continued with her questions while lighting up a cigarette. "Ninja?"

"Yes." After she lit up the cigarette and inhaled the smoke, her scowl disappeared. Naruto couldn't guess what type of tobacco it was. He spent a lot of time with Sarutobi, and the old man didn't particularly care about smoking with kids around, so the boy knew many tobacco flavors. This one could have been some kind of weed he guessed.

"Rank?" Her voice was cold but a bit amused.

"Genin." Hearing that answer the woman finally smiled and then laughed.

"Shit…" She kept smiling and heartily laughing as if the boy just said the greatest joke she's heard in a long time. "What have we gotten ourselves into?…" Her face changed into a serious one this time and she continued. "We can't afford Konoha finding out what we're mining here and who we sell it to, just because we bought a ninja from their village."

She noticed the surprised expression on the blonde's face and explained what she meant. "Konoha's pretty touchy about their ninja's disappearances. They might want to search for you… besides you're that demon child, aren't you?" Naruto eyes widened and she took it as 'yes'. Kaya inhaled some smoke from her cigarette looking thoughtful for a moment and continued. "We'll have to sell you to someone."

-xxxx-

So… how was it? Review dammit!


	2. Chapter 2: Changes

Come on people give this bastard some reviews, I know the first chapter wasn't very interesting, but still two reviews are just kind of…

-xxxx-

Chapter 2: Changes

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Two more months had passed and every time that mistress of the place had some clients she offered Naruto as a bonus for a small amount of money, but it was a complete failure. The boy didn't know if he should consider that luck or not but no one wanted to buy him.

His life was not much different from what it was two months prior. He still worked in the mine and when the buyers of ore came to Kaya the guards came for him. Then he would be returned back to mines and continue his works.

Today the case seemed to be the same. Two guards were escorting him to Kaya's office.

The door to her office opened and Naruto saw the woman sitting behind her table with a bottle of what probably was sake in her hand, the bottle was almost empty. Noticing him and two guards she waved her hand to come in and spoke. "You two may leave."

"Sit." She pointed with the bottle in her hand at the chair in front of the desk.

Naruto did as was ordered and kept silent while the woman looked him over with squinted eyes. Soon she sighed and closed her eyes. Kaya brought the bottle to her lips and drunk until it was finally empty.

"Ahhhhh! Nice stuff… anyway the reason you are here is that nobody wants to buy you, and since it would be a waste leaving you being a normal slave I think of training you." She paused to catch her breath, then continued. "I was once a ninja, so I think I would be able to teach you something."

-xxxx-

Naruto was surprised to find out that there was a river with a waterfall near the mines. Kaya took him there to begin his training. The boy didn't know how to react when she got herself undressed down to her underwear. "K-K-Kaya-sama, what are you doing?" The blond yelped in shock, it wasn't everyday that women decided to undress right in front of him.

"We're going to train in water, and I don't want my clothes getting wet." She said that and gestured for Naruto to do the same. The boy began undressing still a little shocked at her actions.

While the blonde was undressing, she spoke. "…As I said, I was chuunin when I became a missing-nin, I trained a lot after that and now could be a jounin probably. But I don't really know that much stuff, I just perfected my skills." She stopped when Naruto was stripped down to his underwear as well, looked at him with appraising gaze and continued. "Follow me."

The woman walked to the water surface and carefully put her foot on it. "What I'm going to teach you is water walking. It's something basic like tree walking. For now, try putting your foot on water like this and channeling chakra. Try to get a feel of it, call me when you've made some progress." She walked away leaving Naruto all to himself.

The boy did as ordered; he expected it to be somewhat like tree walking where he just tried to stick to the surface of the tree. Water was different however; soon he found out that sticking to it didn't work. He tried pushing chakra out of his foot in different ways and soon knew that it didn't work as well.

He spent next two hours wondering how he could make his foot stand on the water like it was solid. The boy surprised himself when he thought that he should try strengthening the water surface, since it gave some results. Nevertheless, it was too soon to call for Kaya. He needed to be able to do more than that.

Another hour of trial and error passed quickly and Naruto somehow was able make the water a bit more solid. If he pushed his foot too strongly it would eventually sink, but that was more progress than just having a formless idea of how to do it.

"Kaya-sama!" He yelled and waited for her response.

"Continue practicing, I'll be there soon!" The woman yelled back from somewhere not too far.

Naruto returned to his practice of making the water solid under his foot. He tried stepping with two feet and walking but was quickly sinking. The woman arrived soon enough and observed what he was doing. She walked close to him and looked at his the water under his feet closely then she shrugged and spoke. "You're doing it in a strange way… but it's better for what I'm going to have you do next."

Naruto looked at her in wonder and was surprised to see her without makeup. He had to admit something though, he was wrong before, the makeup didn't flatter her it was the exact opposite: she looked better and younger without it. The boy blinked and focused his attention on what she was saying.

"The right way to do is to emit constant stream of chakra from your feet so it would repel you from water surface." She demonstrated by increasing the output of chakra from her feet and almost levitating centimeters above the water. "What you are doing is solidifying the water. It seems it works good enough for you, but it's not exactly chakra control exercise, more like Suiton manipulation." Kaya stepped on the ground and continued. "But that's okay, since I'll be teaching you Suiton element anyway."

"Cool… I've seen that water-dragon thingy. Will you teach this to me?" The boy asked and hurriedly added 'Kaya-sama'.

The woman scowled a little, both because of the way the boy chose to address her before he corrected himself and because she didn't know 'that water dragon thingy' as he put it. The jutsu Naruto spoke of was certainly Suiton: Suiryuudan, but never in her entire life had she seen it. The blond was quite lucky at that aspect she thought.

"Patience!" She yelled in a scolding manner at the blond boy, then added with much less confidence. "In time... you will learn it, maybe…"

The next month passed with Naruto exercising his way of water walking, learning how to manipulate the water element and learning a few Suiton techniques. Much to Kaya's displeasure the boy was slow at learning those things. What disappointed her more was the boy's naivety and certain lack of… intelligence. Sure he could be quite creative from time to time, but the only way to teach him something was to demonstrate it step by step. The woman tried to make it somewhat better by making the boy read books and scrolls. The progress wasn't visible, though.

Normally she trained the blond only when she had the time to. His training-free time Naruto spent working down in the mines. Sometimes she had him fight one of the guards. She didn't say why and the boy thought it was probably for her entertainment, since she always looked at those fights.

They always trained at that waterfall. The place was as good as any other place with water. For the first hour, the boy would usually train by himself while Kaya washed herself somewhere not too far away. Next few hours would be spent with Naruto following her instructions in learning techniques and other things. Occasionally she had him perform other 'favors'.

Through those 'favors' the boy had learned that Kaya was formerly a ninja of Kusagakure and visited Konoha enough times to know what Uzumaki Naruto was. How she actually was nineteen and did all that make up so she would look older since young females like her were not usually respected in any kind of business. She also was unusually talkative during those times, most of those times she was talkative she also was stoned.

After that, he was learning taijutsu for two months. Kaya didn't know a lot about hand-to-hand combat, it seems her forte were Suiton techniques, but she knew more than enough to teach one as inexperienced as Naruto, so he tried to learn everything he could.

-xxxx-

Almost a year had passed since Naruto was brought to Kaya's mines. She had used him, trained him, and finally decided to make the boy one of her guards and after some time even made him supervise the other slaves. At first the boy despised his work, but after some time he decided that it was better him than some abusive guy with overly violent and aggressive temper.

At least he was lenient to other slaves and tried to make their condition easier. There was also another thing that he had noticed. There were only Iwa ninja and some ninja from smaller hidden villages. It was curious thing considering how the boy expected Kaya to want to expand her business.

Today a rather big group of Iwa ninja had arrived. They also seemed an unusual bunch. First almost all of them were jounin if he was to judge by the vests they were wearing. Second there was a teenage girl among them. And third they were especially grim looking bunch.

The guy who seemed to be the leader and the girl approached him. The guy spoke. "It seems like you're in command here, kid. Care to lead us to the mistress?"

Naruto was a little alarmed at the look the man was giving him. It was something filled with surprise, anger and strangely joy. Nonetheless, they were ninja and that meant customers, so he had to do anything to please both them and Kaya. "Yes, follow me please."

The boy led them through mines to the side of the camp where something like a house carved inside the cliff was. It was both Kaya's office and living quarters. He didn't know who made it but he was almost certain that it entailed some sort of Doton ninjutsu.

The guards nodded to him, knowing that he was trusted enough to go inside without being watched. The guards threw the ninja more suspicious glances but again knew better than interfere.

"So, what's your name kid?" The girl asked with a loud voice.

Naruto took his time to answer. He didn't really know why, but decided to give them another name. "Shin." It was the first thing to come to his mind and he liked the sound of that name a little too.

She smirked and replied. "You don't sound very certain."

The blond decided not to reply to that speculation. He ignored all the questions that the girl threw at him and kept silent until they came to Kaya's office. "We're here. You would call her Kaya-sama or Kaya-san, unless told otherwise by the mistress herself."

The boy opened the door entered with two Iwa ninja behind him. "Kaya-sama, these two wish to see you." After that he waited for her approval and exited the room.

He decided to wait outside it. The boy leaned on the wall and began thinking about the reason why the girl was so curious and the guy was giving him weird glances. It would be easily understandable if they were from Konoha, since the older Leaf nins knew of his jinchuuriki status. Then again Iwa could have learned about it too.

As Kaya explained to him, a jinchuuriki was a valuable asset to any hidden village's war effort. He certainly could see Iwa being interested in him as a weapon to wage war. The strange thing was that Kaya had a lot of deals with Iwa previously and they didn't seem to know anything about him.

_Well, they could've learned it only recently…_

The boy shrugged to himself and cleared his head. He waited patiently until the ninja came out of the room. The guy spoke. "Your mistress wants to speak to you."

Naruto entered the woman's office and stood still. He noticed that she had a bottle of sake on her table and two glasses. She motioned him to sit. Naruto did that exact thing. Then she motioned him to drink. Naruto again complied. Satisfied the woman finally spoke. "You're being sold. To Iwa. It seems they know what you are and offered the amount of money I could never get with this mine."

The boy looked at her a bit surprised. She didn't really need to tell him anything besides that he was sold. He frowned thinking what would that mean, but stopped when his thoughts lead him nowhere. The woman was looking at him strangely then motioned for him to drink again.

She was done only when they finished the full bottle. Kaya was a little flustered while Kyuubi made Naruto ignore effects of alcohol. It certainly was one of the good things about the fox. Kaya made him drink with her on some occasions, and much to her dismay he never suffered from hangovers.

"Damn, ain't it a good thing, eh? I wouldn't need to bother with Konoha finding out what happened to you anymore." She smiled contently while looking at the ceiling. Then turned her eyes to him. "So, why Shin?"

"I felt like it." The boy didn't have a better answer, sure he had more truthful answer, but it was just as bad as this one.

"Well, anyway, I guess you don't need to pack anything, but I'll give you something in exchange of fortune you're bringing me." As soon as she finished Kaya began taking off a ring from her finger.

She extended her hand and gave it to the boy. Naruto took the ring carefully and examined it. It was made of grey metal, probably silver, he didn't really know. It also was quite plain if not for engraving on it. It said _'Chasing eternal life brings eternal death.'_

The boy looked at Kaya and she explained. "It's a saying from where I am from."

Naruto chose to forget about it. It probably wasn't the truth anyway. Even if it was it had to have a more meaning behind it than that. He looked at Kaya again and saw her nod. The boy put the ring on his finger with little difficulty and looked at the woman again.

"You will be departing with those ninja. Go ask them when." Naruto nodded and exited Kaya's office.

-xxxx-

Learning that nine-tails vessel had disappeared was frustrating, finding him even more so. For now Akatsuki needed to learn about all of the hosts' locations. They didn't yet have the necessary resources to make the move, but gathering the needed information was not that hard.

Itachi and his partner Kisame were tasked with searching for the blond boy that was the jinchuuriki of Kyuubi. It wasn't easy to find the boy after he disappeared in Nami no Kuni. The older of Uchiha brothers was surprised to learn of what has become with the boy. Being sold into slavery was not something he would've wished on someone.

Still, searching for Naruto's buyers was even more difficult task. He had learned that some woman named Kaya bought him from market with the rest of the slaves left in stock to work at her mines. The woman obviously had a lot of skill. Even after he learned who bought the boy, the location of her mine still was the vague 'somewhere in the north of Hi no Kuni'.

The Uchiha was unimpressed with the level, or lack of it, of the security in her mines, though. The guards were untrained. There were no ninja, even chuunin level. And one or two chuunin level missing nins guards were almost required in her line of work.

What bothered him was that he didn't feel the presence of the nine-tails host here. Not even anywhere near the mine. If the boy wasn't here it meant that nearly all of his work went into dump. Yet if the boy had been here… even if not anymore, then it was good enough.

When the guards tried to stop him and Kisame, the shark man merely used some of his killing intent to make all those men fall to their knees. It served further to prove his point. If that Kaya woman went to such trouble to hide her mine from the non-customers then she was at least somewhat skilled. She should've known to recruit those who could withstand the killing intent.

And yet she didn't… It was all fishy business. Itachi was a very careful person, perhaps even paranoid sometimes. So this situation got on his nerves. Kisame, however, didn't seem to be fazed at all. Nor did he ever, it would take something like apocalypse to make the man at least a bit disturbed he thought.

The guards in front of the door to the woman's office seemed intelligent at least as they didn't try to stop two S-class missing nins. The Uchiha stepped into room and lifted his sharingan eyes to meet the gaze of the sole occupant of the room.

-xxxx-

Review this thing okay? If you have questions ask them.

There was a reviewer concerned with the thing that Sakura might be raped. No, nothing like this would happen, or at least I won't tell you that it happened. She probably won't appear for quite a long time too. It's like that: 4 chapters intro arc, 4-6 chapters Tayuya intro arc, and the next arc will deal with former team 7 business.

And yeah the last thing it is AU so some things didn't happen and COULDN'T happen in normal Naruto universe or even not too AU-ish fanfiction.


	3. Chapter 3: A City of Cold Stone

Now the response to the last chapter was much better than I had expected. Thank you guys, really I appreciate it. The more reviews the more readers, the more readers the more good reviews, the more good reviews the more sense of accomplishment. So yeah, thank you all. Keep it up.

-xxxx-

Chapter 3: A City of Stone

-xxxx-

Iwa was far larger than Konoha the boy decided. And certainly it was much stranger place than Konoha too. His home village looked much like any town they passed on the way to Iwa. But Iwa wasn't like this, none of the buildings seemed to be from anything other than stone. People here preferred all tones of red and black in their clothes unlike Konoha's blue and green.

The boy inhaled and spoke in a quiet voice. "So, this is Iwa huh?"

The Kurotsuchi girl smiled and patted his head. "Impressed, kid?"

"I don't know… the place feels cold." It sure did, the wind was bone chilling. The people around didn't seem to mind it much. The boy rubbed his arms to warm them up a bit and proceeded after his buyers.

"Can't be picky now. It's winter after all." The girl continued to boast about how great the village was.

"Winter, eh?" Naruto whispered quietly to himself thinking about what happened at the bridge. _It was spring when we fought Zabuza at the bridge…_

The girl was still speaking about the village. From what he understood the city above the ground was only a small part of Iwa, since most of the ninja facilities and more than half of residential districts were located bellow the ground in a large labyrinth of caves.

The boy wondered how nobody had tried to collapse those caves and bury half of the village alive. Well, maybe someone tried, but the ninja of Iwa were known for Doton techniques, so they must have prevented it. Still from what he knew Iwagakure had never been invaded by foreign ninja. For that matter none of the Five had been invaded. Small hidden villages were and quite often, though.

Another thing that he noticed was the amount of jounin level ninja around. They seemed to be more common here than chuunin in Konoha. Kurotsuchi seemed to notice the brief look of surprise on his face and asked. "What's the matter?"

"There are many high level ninja here." The boy said thoughtfully to which the black haired girl chuckled.

She then got closer to him and began explaining. "You see, in Konoha only genin get official training and chuunin train by themselves, but here we train chuunin too."

She said many other things that the boy didn't bother listening to. Most of the information she gave to him either was useless or he knew it already. Kaya had taught him a lot, not just ninjutsu with bits of taijutsu and kenjutsu.

The woman was someone he wouldn't mind meeting again in a few years and having a good time remembering the past… maybe with a bottle of alcohol and maybe not one. While she hadn't had much in the department of morals, she was still a somewhat pleasant person to be around.

Naruto shrugged trying to discard his meaningless thoughts. If Kaya sold him then he had served his purpose for her. Whoever was the Kage of Iwa, he would be his new master. It was the only way to make sure he could still look in the mirror and not feel the disgust towards himself for failing Sakura.

Once he was truly free he would dedicate himself to searching for her… or what was left of her. The boy had no illusions about Sakura's fate. He preferred to ready his mind for the worst but still hope for the best. He would do what was required of him for now, though.

Kurotsuchi and everyone else expect the guy by the name Kitsuchi left when they approached easily the largest building of the village. Naruto wondered if it was something akin to Hokage tower and suspicions were confirmed when he and Kitsuchi entered the office of someone and the man greeted the other much older man by his title. "Tsuchikage-sama." The guy's head remained in bowed position until the Kage spoke.

Tsuchikage was surprisingly short for someone who was supposedly one of the most dangerous and strongest men of Elemental Nations. Another surprising thing was that unlike Sarutobi's eyes, which held weariness as well as sometimes regret, the Tsuchikage's eyes held sharp intelligence and wit. It was one of the most curious things about the old guy. The boy thought that with age one's mind would begin to dull, but if it was true than the old man before him held even more frightening intelligence in his youth.

"So you've returned. I trust there were no complications?" Naruto looked at Kitsuchi who immediately tensed when the question was spoken.

The man didn't fail to answer with an air of confidence, no matter how tense he was. "None, everything went just as planned."

Tsuchikage cocked his eyebrow looking at the man as if asking something and spoke. "Good, you'll give your report later. Is that the boy?" Tsuchikage turned his face to meet Naruto's blue stare.

"Yes. He looks very much like Yellow Flash isn't he?" Naruto blinked at that. He had seen photos of Yondaime Hokage, but those were black and white ones only. The only thing that was similar was the spiky hair. Sure he had never seen colored photos of the dead Hokage, but he couldn't have been blue eyed blond, could he?

"I expected just as much. My name is Oonoki by the way. So tell me Naruto, how much do you know about yourself?" Again he was surprised. _He expected as much… what does he mean?_

Oonoki smirked seeing the boy's confused reaction. He would make a great asset to their village, they only needed to make him loyal to the village. He waited for the answer which the blond gave tilting his head to the side. "I'm a jinchuuriki if that what you ask that question for."

"Good, good. Still there is much you will need to learn. Take him to the Caves of Clarity and find Roshi there, further instructions will arrive later." The short Kage looked at the man at least twice his size intently and then two of the nodded to each other and Kitsuchi exited the Tsuchikage office with Naruto in tow.

-xxxx-

Burned bodies and ashes were what met Jiraiya when he arrived to the mine where Naruto was supposed to be. It looked like someone thoroughly burned the place to leave no trail to follow. He was too late. And all because of the trice damned Orochimaru.

The man used Kuchiyose to summon several smaller frogs and make them look for anything worthy of his attention. The white haired Sannin went to the direction where the office of the mistress of the place was supposed to be.

Sure enough everything in the small cave was burned to charcoals. He, however, saw one thing that stood out among others. A big chunk of wall was missing, as if the wall was hit with some massive weapon or a very destructive jutsu. Jiraiya examined that part of wall closely and written down everything he was able to learn about it.

It probably was caused by a weapon, one particular weapon, namely one of the seven swords of mist swordsmen: Samehada. He knew who Samehada belonged to and he knew what organization the man served. Hoshigaki Kisame was one of the known to him members of Akatsuki, the others being Uchiha Itachi and his former teammate. That little tidbit of information created a whole lot of new questions. Did Akatsuki take Naruto or were they unfortunate in that department just like him?

He also wondered why they felt the need to destroy the whole place. From the information he had there was no one here who could pose any threat to S-ranked shinobi. So was there anything that might have led him to Naruto?

Kakashi's failure to protect his godson was a difficult thing to accept knowing that Copycat was nearly Kage level. But he supposed he was a little at fault here too. He was too busy playing a spy to look after Minato's son.

Jiraiya returned to his toads who reported that nothing major was found. There was one final lead he had: the mistress of the place got most of the money out of the deals with Iwa ninja. The metal her slaves mined here was in abundance in Hi no Kuni and pretty rare in Tsuchi no Kuni. He imagined she got quite a lot of deals selling it at half of the market price to Iwa.

And honestly, only Iwa had enough resources to learn about Naruto's existence. None of the smaller hidden villages had ninja skilled enough to learn about something like that. Now, the boy could've been captured by Akatsuki, but his sources told that they were testing the hosts for now to see how dangerous they were.

So Iwa it was, it was a long time since he last was there with a diplomatic mission. It was time to give all those Iwagakure kunoichi a glimpse of Great Toad Sage of Mount Myoboku. He still needed to get the papers from Tsunade to get permission to cross the Tsuchi no Kuni border without repercussions, though.

-xxxx-

Naruto and Kitsuchi were going down through a long maze of caves and tunnels that were underground resident districts of Iwagakure. Most of the caves were illuminated either by the rays of lights coming from cracks in the walls and ceilings or large glowing crystals of different colors.

Naruto wanted to ask how anything, much less humans, were able to live with such dim illumination but decided that it was not the best of times for such questions. Nearly half an hour passed in silence as two ninja, one former genin of Konohagakure and the other jounin of Iwagakure, slowly descended lower and lower.

The lower they got the more crystals became of light blue color. Finally they reached a small metal door. Kitsuchi banged his fist against the door and waited. While waiting for response he spoke. "This man, Roshi, will teach you how to handle the tailed beast within you. More people will teach you once you are deemed more or less loyal to the village."

Naruto was curious to hear that, he wanted to know who was trusted enough to judge him like this. "And who will judge that?"

The boy noticed that the man was becoming fatigued just by standing here. "Roshi. Caves of Clarity is the place where only jinchuuriki can stay for more than four hours. Normal shinobi would feel drained by first hour. Nidaime Tsuchikage-sama was drained of his chakra in four hours. That's maximum ever achieved."

The blond's eyes widened in surprise. To think that such things were even possible. "…wow, so is this place like… drains chakra out of non-hosts?"

The man frowned. He was breathing heavily and was starting to sweat. "Not exactly, more like it drains every source of chakra except that of the tailed beast's chakra. That's why it's called Caves of Clarity. When jinchuuriki is drained of normal chakra he or she can use demonic chakra more easily. Anyway, Roshi will explain it better, I'm no specialist of that."

The door opened halfway the exact moment the man finished his speech. There was a head of a man with red hair and beard sticking out behind it. The man drew his brows together looking suspiciously first at Naruto then transferring his gaze to Kitsuchi.

The man, Naruto assumed it was Roshi, gave the other Iwa ninja a short nod of greeting and spoke. "Kitsuchi. Good to see you. Now, is this him?"

The taller of two men nodded in confirmation and scratched his unshaven chin. "Yes, very much so."

Roshi looked a little more pleased hearing that answer and looked at Naruto examining him with appraising look in his eyes. "Good, come along kid."

The boy entered through the door and was instantly surprised at the vast difference between the caves behind the door and here. The light was still dim but it was much more natural and was coming from all directions. There were no crystals but the stones themselves glowed with ethereal light.

On the surface of the walls and the stones around the boy were carvings that looked quite ancient. It was nothing like he had ever seen before. It wasn't some silly caveman drawings. Every surface around was covered in lines about half an inch thick and deep. The general pattern seemed to be swirls like ones everyone has on their fingers. Strangely those carved lines emitted no glow whatsoever.

Naruto and Roshi went through the large chamber and entered another tunnel which led to four doors. The red haired man led the boy to one of the doors and opened it. It led to a rather small room consisting of what looked like a stone bed and something akin to shelves carved inside of a wall opposite to the stone bad.

"This is the place where you'll live for the next four months. You can look around for now. I'll go bring you a mattress and other things you'll need to sleep here." The boy contemplated his words and decided to follow the man, since he didn't know his way around yet.

"We'll eat in the room located down that corridor." He gestured with his hand at the one of the doors and continued. "Seeing as you have almost no possessions, I'll arrange for some spare clothes for you tomorrow."

They went through several more corridors until Roshi stopped near what looked like a storage room. He grabbed mattress and tossed it to Naruto, then grabbed a pillow with blanket and turned to face the boy. The man seemed to purse his lips once again, although it was barely visible behind his bushy beard, appraising Naruto's reaction and then went back to the room the blond would live in "There is no need to hurry so I'll start your training with reviewing what you have learned and trying to make you perfect it."

Once inside the room, Naruto laid the mattress on the stone bed and then pillow with blanket too once the red haired jinchuuriki handed them to the boy. The man stood in the doorway "So tell me, who was your previous sensei?"

"Hatake Kakashi." Naruto decided to hide the information about Kaya being a ninja for now. He didn't know if Iwa shinobi knew about her former occupation and he didn't really feel like talking about it either way.

Roshi chuckled then smiled speaking. "Now that's one renowned ninja…"

-xxxx-

Several weeks had passed since Naruto started living in the Caves of Clarity. During that time the boy had learned that Roshi was a teacher unlike Kaya. While Kaya usually made him figure out things on his own, giving only a few pointers, Roshi spent most of his time instructing the blond. The man would point out everything the boy was doing wrong then set out to make all those faults nonexistent.

He was thorough and blunt in his instructions and criticism claiming that not knowing your own weaknesses like the back of your hand would eventually kill you. He actually made Naruto learn the proper Bunshin and utilize it efficiently. It had taken a lot of work, yes, but the result was astounding. Where Naruto summoned ten Kage Bunshin and they lasted about a minute against the older man when he went easy on him before, now a combination of Bunshin and Kage Bunshin made them last three minutes.

Bunshin was basically a low level illusion and could take hits but not deal damage, unlike Kage Bunshin. Combining them made an opponent without sensing abilities get confused as to where were the solid ones and where - only illusions. While opponent would waste precious moments to hit an illusion a solid clone would attack him from a different direction.

The man had also taught the boy the proper water manipulations exercises. A Suiton practitioner must make a stone perfectly round using only water to do it. It was one of the more difficult ones to do, but the reward was good. The same could be done with Doton as well, you merely needed to chip away small parts of said stone. It was actually easier with the use of Doton instead of Suiton, or at least Roshi had told him so.

Currently two of them were sitting in meditating positions in the largest chamber of the cave. Roshi was telling the boy why exactly the caves were called the Caves of Clarity.

"You see, the stone here has special properties. It absorbs all normal chakra from everyone. That's why every stone surface here glows actually. It has absorbed so much chakra for centuries if not millennia, so it became literary a natural conductor of the chakra. And as most ninja know, the chakra in its natural form glows quite brightly." The cave had great acoustic properties and even if Roshi didn't talk very loud his voice still boomed.

"So onto the jinchuuriki now. Jinchuuriki, unlike normal ninja, have also demonic chakra or youki as some call it. It's in no way normal, and I think it would take another millennia or so to get these stones to absorb it too. The absence of normal chakra in your body would usually make anyone pass out or die, but we are no just anyone. We are hosts. That said, chakra's absence makes it easier to communicate with your beast. In order to bring out all tails, you must make your beast cooperative. Furthermore your body must be able to handle it. As far as I know, the Kyuubi's chakra is extremely toxic to humans. Although, do not under any circumstance try to fight your beast in your mindscape while meditating in these caves, I had to subjugate the released Gobi alone until the help arrived when its host did so."

The man placed a scroll on the ground and unfurled it. He bit his finger had enough to draw blood and smeared it across the scroll. With a poof of smoke several brushes and an inkwell appeared along with three normal scrolls.

"Now come closer, I'll draw a seal on your forehead which will help me to enter your mindscape with you. We will try to find Kyuubi and talk with it."

Roshi took one scroll and read it, then took brush slipped it into inkwell and waited for the boy. Once Naruto was before him, the man began drawing a seal on his forehead. In about an hour's time they were finally done.

"Try to clear your mind and imagine facing the Fox." Naruto nodded and sat down into a meditative position. He felt the red haired man's fingers touch his forehead and began shooing his thoughts away.

-xxxx-

Two of them stood in a sewer. Naruto looked around examining his mindscape. It was a pitiful sight. Water dripping from the ceiling. Lights were dim, much more dim than those in the caves. It smelled quite bad too. He wasn't sure how he could feel smell in his mind, though.

Roshi coughed to get his attention. "We shouldn't stand here, let's go. We need to find Kyuubi."

After some wandering around two of them reached Kyuubi's chamber. The beast was staring at the two jinchuuriki from the darkness with only his eyes visible.

"**What do you want, mortals?"** The beast's voice boomed across the room.

"We've come to know the price."

Naruto turned to Roshi surprised at his words. "The price? What do you mean?"

"**You want my cooperation?"** Kyuubi was strangely calm saying this. The blond didn't expect the Fox to react this way. Huffing in irritation at being ignored the boy turned back to face the demon.

The red haired host nodded and said. "Yes."

Suddenly Roshi fell to his knees while clutching his chest. The man was gasping for breath while seemingly trying to claw out his own heart. Naruto immediately run to his side trying to prevent him from doing any harm to himself.

His eyes quickly became bloodshot. The veins on his head were bulging from the blood pressure. Kyuubi's voice boomed again. **"Insolent moron. Do not think so lightly of me. Barging in here is a crime as it is, but you dared to bring Yonbi."**

The man seemed to finally be able to breath. After several short gasps he spoke in hoarse trembling voice. "F-forgive me…"

The beast didn't respond to the man and Naruto felt its gaze fixed on him. The boy shifted uncomfortably. He was used to appraising gazes by now, courtesy of Roshi, but Kyuubi was a whole new level.

Having the beast examine him as if he was some food was… unpleasant. Sure he had stood here before, but those time it was always in a middle of a battle. The blond scratched his head feeling more and more uncomfortable with each passing second.

"**Should you die, I will as well. I will not tolerate demands, though."**

Naruto didn't know what to say to that. His attention was brought to Roshi again when he heard the man coughing. It seems that he was in fairly bad condition. He was coughing up blood. The blond walked to him and picked the redhead up. Curious thing was that he didn't feel the man's weight.

The man's eyes seemed to burn in bright red and he spoke in a distorted voice.** "Do not think I will let it pass…" **His words came out in a low hiss.

"**Monkeys do have big mouths." **The beast spoke in half amused tone, then glared at the red haired man.** "Kneel! If you want to live that is." **Roshi started gasping for breath again. The man soon fell to his knees, willingly or not - the boy did not stared in shock at the beast behind the bars. He could affect other people in his mind like that? Was the Fox really that powerful?

The question was left unanswered as he felt being forcefully flung out of the depths of his mind. The blond looked around and his eyes immediately stumbled upon half-conscious older man.

Blood was dripping from both his nose and mouth. He was muttering that 'he'll never forget that' while struggling to remain upright, but it was getting harder and harder for him. His consciousness was slowly but surely slipping from him. He seemed to gather what little strength he had and spoke in a more normal voice. "Just let me lie down for a little, I'm gonna be ok."

-xxxx-

Three months and two weeks later, Naruto was officially becoming Iwagakure no Sato genin. The boy was very surprised at how easy it was to become a ninja of another village after proving your loyalty. All what was needed were simply papers: an explanation of how a ninja of Konoha came to be in Iwa. In his case the papers stated that he was a missing ninja who looked for another hidden village to serve, one with different view on ninja world and different morals. And another paper that contained written agreement of highly trusted jounin to make him a ninja. That jounin was Roshi of course.

For four months the man kept giving him appraising and suspicious looks. Openly or discreetly didn't matter. He merely needed to gauge the boy's reaction to certain things. There were of course long talks and some psychological examinations, after which it was agreed upon that Naruto would stay loyal, unless they openly acted against him.

So here he was standing in the office of Tsuchikage, holding his Iwagakure forehead protector and wondering what exactly was supposed to happen now. Was he really a ninja of Iwa, or was he just labeled a ninja of Iwa? Did he really feel loyalty to them? The boy couldn't really answer that question. His mind clung to that childish dream of becoming Hokage. Logically he could understand why he would want this and maybe even let go of that dream, but emotionally it was very hard.

Everything became harder when Tsuchikage introduced the tall white haired man who was standing next to a wall on the left form the boy. Oonoki spoke with a confident voice. "Naruto, this is Jiraiya of Densetsu no Sannin from Konoha. I'm sure you know of him." The blond boy noticed a small smirk on the old Kage's face. "He's here to 'take you back to Konoha', that's what he said."

Naruto's eyes widened at this declaration. He looked suspiciously at the Sannin, and turned his face back to Tsuchikage. He was not sure how to feel about it. On one side the man did come for him, on the other hand he should've done it a year earlier. The blond knew that there was no way that Konoha could've known about team 7 predicament. Kakashi didn't send for help, he only sent a message about changed mission parameters and a note that they will continue it.

It was one of the situations where his home village couldn't do anything to prevent it. He and Sakura were sold. The boy didn't really care about himself, he could live through that without much difficulties. Sakura, however, he was not sure. She was a girl, and there were many other things that could happen to the girl and had much lesser chance of happening to the boy.

The boy cleared his throat and spoke in a quiet voice while looking at the ground. "Tell me, Jiraiya-san, what happened with Haruno Sakura?"

"We searched for her, but didn't find anything that may suggest her present location."

Naruto wanted to laugh at this. Even if they did search like the man said then they simply didn't do it hard enough. That - he knew for sure. Kaya did everything to hide her existence from Konoha, or at least everything in her powers. They probably did everything in their powers to find him, and yet finding a young girl of no major importance was something they didn't feel like putting their effort into? Well then, fuck them.

"I see… then there is nothing for us to talk about." The boy gave one final glance to his new forehead protector and tied it around his head.

Tsuchikage's smirk grew much larger. Naruto could guess what the man was feeling right now. Were he in the old man's position he would've probably felt the same. Having the potential enemy's trump card for yourself was something to feel proud and happy about.

The boy didn't feel Jiraiya's astounded look, nor did he care about it. Konoha had betrayed his trust one too many times. He didn't care about them anymore.

-xxxx-

Once Naruto left the Tsuchikage office two white haired men were free to talk without restrictions.

Jiraiya looked very much livid as he spoke. "What did you do to him?"

"Did you not see it, Jiraiya-dono? The boy obviously lost his trust in your home." Hearing this did not make Toad Sennin feel any better. He only felt worse from that. Truthfully, he didn't even need to hear it to know what was wrong, but he was clinging to the hope that his godson was somehow indoctrinated into seeing Iwa's side of things.

"This can't be true, he was one of the most loyal young shinobi of Konoha." He said still clinging to that false hope.

"First, did someone tell you that or do you know from your own experience? Second, his reaction was very similar to love turned into hate. And we both know that there is only a thin wall between those two emotions. And third, Konoha is in no position to demand his return. That attack from your treacherous teammate must have weakened it quite a lot, hasn't it?" Oonoki didn't say anything that the tall man did not know. Everything was what he concluded from seeing and hearing the boy.

"Fine, but I feel that it's far from over." That was true, council wouldn't just let it go. Not after they wasted money worth at least twenty S-ranked missions before finally deciding to employ him. Even more so they wouldn't let it go knowing who and what the boy was. Child of their greatest hero was a valuable political tool, and seeing that he was a jinchuuriki, the blond was practically the most valuable ninja among genin and chuunin of Hi no Kuni.

Tsuchikage's smile as he spoke unnerved Jiraiya, it was something to be wary of. The man was as dangerous as he was strong and cunning. "It sure is. Now tell me, how did you make Tsunade agree to become Hokage?"

"I promised to stop writing Icha Icha, but seriously it's none of your business, Tsuchikage-dono" Two men gave each other a hard stare. After a while both eventually turned away. "I'll take my leave."

-xxxx-

So how was it?


	4. Chapter 4: A Day of Paycheck

Here's a new chapter, it's late but I had a writer's block with it, then I had exams, then I was lazy, then I was finally playing Deus Ex Human Revolution, then summer break was over and I had university and was even more lazier, then I got a haircut which really devastated me (imagine getting hair you've grown for four years cut down to the length of one inch or shorter), then I was playing Rage (the game is pretty cool, DAT LEVEL DESIGN), and then I finally started finishing this chapter and now here it is, and now I'm actually back to lazy.

-xxxx-

Chapter 4: Day of Paycheck

-xxxx-

The boy stood in the middle of one of the countless rope bridges of Iwagakure. The view was great, as always. One thing that was definitely good in Iwa, was its landscape. The mountains around were nothing like Hokage Mountain of Konoha. They were grand, even regal. And the town bellow didn't look like 'generic city number 14'. The blond always thought that Konoha's sceneries were rather bland, except for Hokage Mountain, of course. But here it was… different, he supposed, or maybe he has become different?

Really, what was happening to him? How could he change so suddenly as to want to have nothing common with his former home? What was wrong with him? His consciousness kept chewing him out for 'betraying' Konoha making him suffer a small case of insomnia.

But he supposed he wasn't thinking straight. It was always like that, he would act first and then lament about the consequences. The same happened with the bridge in wave. If he had been more thoughtful and did not jump into the mirrors it could've gone differently. The same happened with his and Sakura's escape. If he hadn't been wasting his time with useless crap like pranks he might have actually been good enough to succeed in that escape attempt.

The same was happening now with his decision to say figurative 'fuck you' to Jiraiya and Konoha in general. There was no going back, though. He would serve Iwa, and he would serve it to the best of his ability. Maybe then his consciousness will let him sleep soundly.

"Yo!" The teen nearly jumped in surprise. Normally he wouldn't be scared like that, but now he was rather deep in his thoughts and the sensation of someone's hand on his shoulder was very sudden.

He turned to find a smiling girl with short black hair and pink-brown eyes. "Oh. Errrrrrr… Kurotsuchi, right?" The name was hard to remember, many, and it meant MANY people in Iwa had names ending with 'tsuchi'.

She didn't seem to mind the difficulty it took him to remember her name and spoke. "Yeah. So, how's it goin' kid?"

The blonde huffed and turned back to look at the village bellow. "Like you're much older…"

"You're still kid by my standards. So?" She joined him at observing the scenery of her home.

"Not bad, I guess." The teen shrugged feeling like he didn't want to be very honest today. And well, he didn't think that she cared that much. Perhaps a little, but not enough to make a difference.

"How's your training?"

"The same." The blonde wanted to lean on the railing when he remembered that it wasn't one of Konoha's stone bridges and was a flimsy bridge made of rope and some wooden planks.

"You're not very talkative, are you?" Kurotsuchi put her hand on Naruto's head and ruffled his hair a little. "Fine, fine. I'll stop with questions and start with suggestions. Wanna go eat somewhere?"

The blonde looked thoughtful for a moment. It had been a long time since he ate any ramen. "Hmmm… is there any ramen stands nearby?"

The girl gave him a strange face when she saw the expression he had. "You like ramen?"

"Yes, a lot."

"Well anyway, follow me, 'kay?" Kurotsuchi turned her back to him and was about take off when his question stopped the girl.

"Wait, isn't it a little too early?"

"Why? It's five already!"

Two of them moved into bottom of the city then. Passing several training grounds and two living districts they arrived to a small restaurant. It wasn't very large but it was still bigger than Ichiraku. A few ninja were already there, some eating some chatting. It wasn't something Naruto expected to see at such an early hour.

Naruto ordered ramen of course and Kurotsuchi some kind of a fish dish. He didn't know the name of it, and it looked like something he wouldn't enjoy eating.

"So, tell me, how was it living in Konoha?" Noticing the troubled look he gave her the brunette leaned over the table and whispered to him. "Don't worry, I know that you're jinchuuriki."

When she settled back into her seat, Naruto spoke looking thoughtful. "I got stares, and people generally feared me enough to stay away. Younger kids didn't know anything about the whole Kyuubi thing, but their parents just told them that I'm a very bad person. So everything considered, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, still not very nice, though."

"I guess that's what every host gets growing up. I heard from the old man that it's different in Kumo. Their jinchuuriki are very respected."

"Lucky guys then." Naruto mumbled between his slurping.

"And gals too, one host is a woman."

"And gals too then." The boy said that and looked at suspicious pair of people sitting nearby. One thing he knew for sure, travelers in black cloaks were common, but black cloaks with red clouds on them? There was something weird about it, but he wasn't one to judge people based on their looks. Many mercenaries opted for more flashy and recognizable garbs. Perhaps those two were like that.

He didn't want to spend eternity wondering who those two were. The blond turned back to his noodles and continued not paying attention to what Kurotsuchi was babbling about. Letting his mind wander off got him to thinking about his training.

It wasn't like with Kakashi, nor was it like with Kaya or Roshi. The day he became genin he wasn't assigned to a team. Instead he was assigned several jounin instructors that would train him in more conventional ninja combat.

Since Roshi didn't succeed in teaching the boy how to handle his tailed beast that kind of training would be postponed until a way to get any results was found. The red haired man told Naruto that they had another method, but for such method to be fruitful some preparation was needed. So the Yonbi host was sent on a mission to god knows where and was absent for nearly a week already.

Speaking of Roshi and jinchuuriki in general he remembered one thing he wanted to ask. "Hey, I heard about other jinchuuriki, Han. What's the deal with him? From what I know life of a host here isn't too bad, and from what Roshi said the guy hates people of Iwa."

Kurotsuchi looked puzzled for a moment before humming loudly. "…ummmm… I don't know details, but what I heard here and there and what grandpa told me - half of it is a messed up seal. The other half I don't know about."

"Couldn't someone fix the seal?"

"Our sealing experts are not qualified enough to fix it without killing Han."

He sat there for several minutes contemplating the information he got from the girl thinking if there was a way for him to help Han. Maybe it wasn't his business, but he wanted to help the guy. When he needed help no one had been there to do it, so if he could help someone he would at least try.

There was still one question bothering him, though. "How come he didn't leave the village yet?"

Kurotsuchi closed her eyes turned her face upwards and opened eyes looking at the ceiling, studying it as if there was something very and very interesting there. "Even if he hates the people, he loves the place. He's one of the most loyal people in here, could be even the most loyal."

After of a minute of silent eating from the both sides, the girl looked up and stared at Naruto in wonder. The teen frowned thinking he had some food on his face. He tried to find if there indeed was anything there. The black haired young woman just laughed at his antics.

"Sorry I confused you. I was just thinking… I heard from several jounin that you were asking about anyone who could teach you wind manipulation."

"Yeah, I did. What about it?"

"Grandpa could teach you about it. He has a fairly good grasp on it."

While Roshi was absent, Naruto was being taught ninjutsu by another jounin. The man was tall and slim, he also had very messy black shoulder length hair which made him look more of a scarecrow than Kakashi.

He could understand just how useful the element might be. And he could already see where he would put it to best use. In fact, after reading info Iwa had on Kakashi and the Yellow Flash of Konoha, the Yondaime Hokage, he had a few ideas, swimming in the ocean of his goals, ideas and thoughts.

What had more piercing power a drill or a nail? Obviously a drill. From what he knew, Kakashi's Raikiri was that nail that was simple brute force put in hand. And Yondaime's Rasengan was of course awe inspiring but at the very least ineffective. It was just a ball of randomly swirling chakra. If he could focus its spinning and make it swirl in a drill pattern, it could just well become the deadliest assassination technique known to the world.

When Kurotsuchi's hand shook him out of his thoughts two strangers were already gone. The girl looked at him a bit annoyed. "You weren't listening to me just now, were you?"

"Nope." He said truthfully, lying simply wasn't in his nature. "Sorry."

"Nah, just forget about it."

"Shouldn't you feel angry or something?"

"That thing happens to me sometimes. I keep talking and talking and talking until people just begin to ignore me."

-xxxx-

"…you found a suitable candidate?" The old Tsuchikage spoke with a slight smile on his face. Roshi returned earlier than expected, and knowing that he was not to return without positive result meant that the boy's training would have a head start.

The expression the redhead had wasn't exactly smug, but the sense of accomplishment was clearly visible to Oonoki. "Yes. Surprisingly she was the second to be checked for it. I thought it would take a lot more time."

"Nah, sometimes things like that happen." The Tsuchikage shuffled in his armchair to take a position where his back wasn't strained as much. Turning his face to a man with messy black hair, he spoke. "What do you say, Kazuma?"

The man put a hand on his chin in contemplation, before speaking thoughtfully. "Naruto shows remarkable improvement, compared to his previous level of skill that is. If he was just about high genin a month ago, now he at the very least is a mid chuunin level. And while I don't look forward to the trip to the north, I do understand the importance of the task."

"Good. Two of you will escort the boy to that village."

Oonoki's good mood was broken when his secretary entered the office with a distressed look on her face. "Tsuchikage-sama, you have two guests from Akatsuki."

Akatsuki… he had dealings with them in the past. None were of the pleasant sort of course, but it mattered not right now. Akatsuki came only when they were called for, and today he didn't call them, meaning today's visit wouldn't be one of a pleasant nature.

The old man sighed then looked up with a small fire in his eyes. Whatever Akatsuki needed he wouldn't be bullied like some child. Iwa was strong. There was time when it was strongest hidden village, but now it wasn't that shabby too. He would show them what it meant to anger Ryoutenbin no Oonoki.

"Roshi, Kazuma be on your guard."

The next moment two men entered the office. One was tall, had blue skin, and an interesting blade strapped to his back. The other was much shorter than the first one, had black hair and very distinctive eyes that no one would be able to mistake to anything.

"We have come to extract our payment for previous instances of helping your village's war effort, Tsuchikage-dono." The Uchiha spoke with a monotone voice.

"And what is this payment?" Oonoki drew back his head and looked at the in a way that would resemble looking down at someone bellow you without lowering your head to them.

"All your hosts."

"I think I may find myself rethinking our agreement. This is unacceptable. As much as I value our partnership, two hosts are too much. So I'm w-"

Before he had a chance to finish the Uchiha interrupted him. "Three hosts."

"I think you are mistaken in your belief that our village may provide you with additional host we do not have." The glare the black haired young man got was something no ninja of Iwagakure would want to be on the receiving end of.

"I think you are taking us for fools Tsuchikage-dono." The Uchiha sent the old man an equally venomous glare and continued. "Uzumaki Naruto, the current jinchuuriki of Kyuubi no Yoko is presently in your village."

The old Tsuchikage chuckled and started getting up from his armchair. "Heh… our agreement seems to have outgrown the bounds of my generosity, Uchiha-san." With much angrier voice he continued. "Will you leave the walls of this village by yourselves or should I use force and make my people throw out your bodies?"

At the exact moment the Tsuchikage finished speaking Kisame darted towards Roshi standing by the wall. Samehada was already brandished and ready to rip him apart but the redheaded ninja was fast enough to both dodge and retaliate with a swift strike of his curved kunai.

Kazuma tried to attack the blue skinned man, but was kicked through the window. Kisame now had time to focus solely on the host. Itachi was busy entertaining Tsuchikage and it was up to him to measure just how dangerous the Yonbi jinchuuriki was.

They were just testing their water here after all. Just a week ago, the leader had told everyone that the Three-tails was out for a while and their plans were pushed back a little. Knowing that, he thought it was pretty stupid to just come out like that and announce to the whole Iwa that they were after their mass-destruction weapons. But he was a ninja and he obeyed his orders without a word.

And so the battle continued. Samehada sailed through the air heading for Roshi's head but met his hand instead. Kisame was for once surprised that his sword was ineffective against someone seeing that nothing happened to the host's hand.

The shark man glanced at Itachi trying to keep the old Tsuchikage busy. He was succeeding of course, but the more he thought about it the more it seemed like those two were just doing it for appearances' sake. He was almost caught off guard by Roshi while thinking about it. His battle hardened instincts were good enough to work with his mind focusing on the task with only half of its power, though.

As a few kunai flew in his direction, Kisame dodged them and was forced to watch Roshi preparing to use his famous lava release. The man went through several hand seals and spit a ball of lava at Kisame. The shark man dodged, since trying to block it with Samehada wouldn't be a smart move. His blade was alive after all and didn't enjoy getting hit by such dangerous attacks.

"Roshi, don't destroy the office!" The now floating in the air Tsuchikage yelled at his subordinate with obvious anger in his voice.

Judging by three balls of lava that followed the first one, the redheaded jinchuuriki decided to disregard Kage's words. Kisame dodged the first two, but his cloak was caught on fire with the third. Before he had a chance to discard it Itachi grabbed his shoulder

"Kisame, we're leaving." Uchiha said with a louder than normal voice to the blue skinned man.

"What? I didn't even start getting serious!"

"That's enough. I observed and I know that you can take him on by yourself and win. Now what left is Uzumaki child." Two Akatsuki members fled through the window and sped to the place where Samehada was feeling chakra tainted by the nine-tails.

Oonoki looked at the village from the broken window and waited until Kazuma climbed up the wall back into the office.

"You should be faster doing it, Kazuma."

Upon hearing Tsuchikage's words, the black haired man went down to his knee and bowed his head. "My apologies, his kick was far too powerful. The pain messed up my control."

"Doesn't matter. Roshi go to Naruto, I'm sure that's where they're heading. Kazuma, go fetch Akatsuchi and Kitsuchi. Chase that scum out of my village like the dogs they are." Oonoki turned back to his desk and sat on the armchair thinking just what it would cost to make that office indestructible. Accidents like today happened far too often for his liking.

-xxxx-

Both Naruto and Kurotsuchi sat upon the surface of the lake. Naruto sat in a meditative position with his top clothes lying on the shore of the lake. Kurotsuchi sat hugging her knees with her chin resting on one of them.

Honestly, her silent staring unnerved him. No, irritated or annoyed, that was much more closer to the truth. She was a nice girl, that much he got from eating with her, which apparently wasn't a date since she didn't even consider him a male, more like a young child of indeterminable gender, which he wasn't. He stopped looking as androgynous as Haku when he was four years old.

And that disregard of his age and gender she had made him even more annoyed than her staring. Didn't she know that staring was rude? No matter how rude he himself might have been before, he never stared unless it was for that exact reason: just to stare.

She could have been doing the same to him, but really… was it her goal to annoy him? Naruto sighed and looked up at the girl across him.

Not noticing his distress or not caring about it, Kurotsuchi smiled widely and waved her hand in dismissal. "Don't worry 'bout me, I'm here to observe you. You are an interesting kid."

"I'm not a kid anymore." The boy grumbled forgetting the reason he started it.

The black haired girl looked up into the sky in a 'don't-know-don't-care' manner, before returning her gaze to him. "Doesn't matter, remember what Kazuma-san said to do."

"Yes." Naruto sighed in defeat. He didn't understand the purpose of this exercise. Polishing the rocks with water made sense since he practiced his control. But lifting big ass boulders from the bottom of the fucking lake with nothing but the increased pressure of the water made absolutely no sense.

But he guessed not everything was as bad as it could be. After all Kurotsuchi stopped staring. Though, the alternative wasn't much better. She started babbling, again. "You know, I always thought that water is an amazing element. It has a character of its own. It doesn't want to be used in places where there are no water and things like this. It's really cool..."

"Tell that Nidaime Hokage. He could gather water molecules from the air around him."

She gave him a mock glare for his interruption and was speaking again even before he could react to it. "You miss my point. He was a Kage after all, my grandfather can fly like some kind of crazy superhero. They're supposed to know how do to unnatural things like this."

The water near them began bubbling and finally one of the boulders popped up.

"Maybe you're right, but I think Raiton's way cooler. You've never seen Kakashi do his chirping thingy." Yes, he lied, but that was beside the point. He still thought that Raiton was way cooler, and what better way to prove it than make her think that he saw Kakashi's borderline legendary assassination technique in its full glory.

"Oh, Copycat Kakashi! He's quite well known, tell me about him."

"He's lazy, perverted, always late, might be dead now." The boy said imitating Kakashi's voice and expression.

"Well, we didn't hear anything big from Konoha since that chuunin exams incident… so who knows?"

Chuunin exams incident? "What do you mean?"

"Ummm… well, during the last chuunin exams in Konoha, the village was invaded by Sunagakure and some upstart village. I don't know much, but Hokage was killed by someone and apparently his former student Tsunade of the Sannin became the new one."

Naruto stared at her wide eyed in shock. Old man killed? Was it truth? Did it really happen? How could he have died? He was the strongest person that Naruto knew. He couldn't die just like that. Not before he could show the old man how good a Kage he would made, Hokage or Tsuchikage didn't matter.

Maybe he just wanted to disappear for a while… to not be bothered by anyone. _Or maybe he wanted to look for me myself and couldn't… No who am I lying to? People who lie to themselves are despicable._

"You alright?"

"Not really. I was close to the old man Hokage." Naruto spoke with tears forming in his eyes. Truly, he was a fool. If he went back with Jiraiya he would be able to at least visit the Sandaime's grave, but now… now he wasn't so sure he would be able to set his foot in Konoha ever again.

Suddenly something exploded in the distance. The stones that Naruto managed to bring to the surface immediately started sinking. The next thing the two young shinobi knew was balls of lava flying from the tree line and two men followed by angry looking Roshi.

One of the men was missing his cloak, but both looked very much like people the boy saw while eating with Kurotsuchi. _So they were up to something after all. My bad, should've reported them or something…_

"Naruto, Kurotsuchi, stay out of it!"

"I'm not a kid to be bossed around like this, you geezer!" Kurotsuchi shouted to the redhead and charged at the shorter man with her hands flashing through seals.

…_not a kid, huh? I see now._

Right after that a barrage of lava balls flew at the black haired man. It hit him alright but he dissolved into dozens of crows. Naruto whirled around sensing a presence behind him just in time to block incoming kick to his face.

For a few moments he was alone against a hostile ninja capable of battling Roshi when he was serious. He needed to remain alive until Kurotsuchi was able to join him, which surely would be very very soon, but the time it took for her to come to the boy would be enough for the red eyed man to kill him in dozens of ways.

Naruto blinked dodging another kick. The guy wasn't trying to kill him! Something was wrong. "Suiton: Exploding Water Needle Bomb!" The boy yelled before spitting a ball of water that exploded into myriads of tiny droplets that in turn transformed into senbon-like needles and flew in the general direction of his enemy.

The man dodged the most of the senbon blast, but some needles got to him. The man exploded and crows flew from where he was standing mere moments ago. Some crows flew at the blonde boy. While most of them flew away, one remained and was intent on harming Naruto.

"Get away from me, you stupid bird!"

Before he was able to close his mouth he was already swallowing the bird. _What the hell? What kind of disgusting jutsu is it?_

Some seconds later he had blacked out.

-xxxx-

When Naruto regained his consciousness he was laying in the Tsuchikage's office. It seemed almost everyone he knew, which was quite small number of people, was standing near the couch he was on. Roshi and Kazuma were there, Kurotsuchi and Akatsuchi were there too, even Kitsuchi was there. He supposed a big man in red armor that was leaning on the wall opposite of the couch could be Han, if they described him correctly that is.

"You're awake sooner than we've expected."

The boy turned his head to the source of the words and found the old Tuschikage there. Oonoki was looking at the blonde with poorly hidden mix of worry and anger.

"Oh, hello Tsuchikage-sama. I hadn't seen you there."

A vein above the old man's right eyebrow pulsed, but he quickly calmed himself down and breathed a sigh. Tsuchikage looked at Naruto with serious gaze and spoke. "Seeing that Akatsuki are interested in obtaining you or more specifically your tailed beast, I think it would be prudent to increase the intensity of your training regime."

He took a pause and walked to his desk. When he was comfortably seated on his chair the old man continued. "Moreover, Kumogakure has also increased intensity of the training rookie ninja go through. And they were supposed to act according to the demilitarization pact all the while. However there is also one thing we haven't tried with Kyuubi yet. Shodaime-sama has offered a concept of jinchuuriki and his… so to say limiter. Said limiter is a person which will maintain the mental link with the host and prevent him from succumbing to the bijuu's will."

The young teen sat up rubbing his neck. He glared at quietly snickering Kurotsuchi and turned back to look at Oonoki while wondering what exactly that limiter person did. It was easy to say 'prevent from succumbing to bijuu's will', but what exactly did it entail? Did this person knock him on his head when he was losing control or something? It couldn't be something as mundane as this, right?

"What does that mean? I don't understand."

"It means that we will find a person mentally compatible with you, and that person will keep you in control whenever you draw upon the beast's chakra."

_Great, I need to be clear about what I'm asking. _Still, 'mentally compatible' was something to work with. _Must be something like Yamanaka mind-walker or something. _He didn't think that Iwa had any techniques like that, but what else would they need a 'mentally compatible' person for? Doing his laundry and not complaining? Or maybe making him his food?_ Ridiculous…_

"What do you mean mentally compatible?" He asked before really thinking about his question.

"Someone that thinks the same way you do, someone who can understand you on a deeper level than anyone else. Such person is often a relative or a lover…" Oonoki motioned for the blonde to come closer to the desk and gave Naruto a paper folder. "You must remember that we took samples of your blood and ran other tests, yes? Well, someone very similar to you _was_ found. But regretfully not here in Iwagakure. Look at that file."

The teen eyed the folder suspiciously before opening it. While he was looking over the contents the old man continued to speak. "She's from a settlement in far north of the Earth country. Her village is near one of the ancient ruins so their settlement was important when we were exploring it. Now though, they are just northern border of Tsuchi no Kuni. They have a small garrison there. You should also know that many talented would-be-ninja came to Iwa from this and other northern settlements."

Naruto looked up from the picture of a young girl and the data they had about her and asked. "So what does that mean? What I understand is that her personality and my own are kind of similar, but what does it have to do with my relatives?"

The old Kage sighed and rubbed his forehead in a way that suggested that he was getting annoyed at Naruto's questions. "As you could see her hair is blond, her eyes are blue. Both the same shade as yours. Your DNAs are similar as well. Do you understand what it means? One or both of your parents could have probably hailed from this or other neighboring villages."

"Don't be a tease, Oonoki. Everyone above twenty in this room knows full well who Runt's parents are."

Naruto turned to the source of loud booming voice in the room. Han. The teen couldn't see much behind the man's mask, but being student of Hatake Kakashi for even a little time had taught him how to distinguish emotions of people whose faces were covered with something. The man was frowning. No. Scowling at Oonoki. He was obviously displeased because the old Kage decided to be a 'tease'.

"Right, this rude bastard is Han, Naruto. He is jinchuuriki of Five Tailed beast and as you've seen is _very_ rude."

Naruto decided to humor the old man and chuckled. Han's scowling face turned to the boy instead but nothing much changed. "I guess he is. He did call me a 'Runt' after all."

Han was ready to jump at the boy but was restrained by timely intervention of Roshi and Kitsuchi. His reaction spoke great volumes of the man's lack of restraint or maybe lack of desire to show that restraint. "Why you!"

"Han, it's stupid to be goaded by a child. Calm down." Roshi chided the armored man.

The old Kage looked over his subordinates and finally decided that everyone calmed down continued. "Now back to the matter at hand. You have a day to get anything you need, boy. Be ready to leave tomorrow six in the morning. Roshi, Kazuma and Akatsuchi will accompany you. Know one thing, though, it's really cold there, colder than you have probably known."

Naruto blinked at the old man's words. Sure he expected it to be cold in the far north, but so cold that even the Tsuchikage chose to specifically warn him? Then he noticed Roshi trying not to laugh and decided that it was one of the old man's quirks. The old people usually thought that it was colder than it really was if he was to judge by the number of old folk of Iwa dressed as if it was winter during the late spring.

The teen rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully and spoke. "I have a question. What was that about my parents? You knew them, Tsuchikage-sama?"

"Not exactly knew…" The old man shook his head and stopped for a moment. His eyes turned to the top of the wall to his right and by extension a bookcase standing further along that wall. After several seconds he continued. "…well, not on personal level at least. But you will receive the answer when the time for it is right."

"Another question. What is Akatsuki?"

-xxxx-

A Slave of Emotions

End

-xxxx-

Next chapter two and something years timeskip and a start of a new arc. Any important event during timeskip would be shown in flashbacks.

Tayuya finally appears in chapter 6 and nothing would change that. Also the next chapter is pretty much almost finished. There is nothing that would make me post it later than Christmas (Which is pretty long wait, but not by my standards) That is unless Skyrim turns out to be THAT good.

**A bit of trivia:** the whole fic was inspired by a scene of Air Gear manga where the kid with dual personality(Akito? Agito?) and some older girl (I don't remember her name. I read Air Gear for art) were in a boat in the middle of the lake in the mountains (I think. As I said I don't remember details). The scene was pretty romantic and I wanted to write something with a similar one. So I looked for older than Naruto female characters from Konoha and none really fit the criteria I set. And guess what? I decided to use Kurotsuchi. Eventually things evolved into NarutoxTayuya story and the scene that gave birth to this whole story turned into the lake scene you've seen in this chapter. Pretty lame, right? Whatever.

**P.S. **Who else thinks admins should add Timetravel genre to the site, or maybe make a tag system for fics? Or maybe fic types like timetravel, AU, highschool, yuri, yaoi, genderbender, etc? Because honestly, I'm tired of looking for things I want to read through the pages filled with garbage. The most important thing for me is Harem filter, though.

**P.P.S.** I forgot even more important thing. Review!


	5. Chapter 5: The Memories of My

I'm not too sure about this chapter, but well… most of the time things go against my expectations. Anyway, read and try to enjoy.

-xxxx-

The White Plain

Chapter 5: The Memories of My…

-xxxx-

"It's your second time here, Naruto-sempai?" A young cheerful voice of female chuunin rang in the air as Naruto and three others went around another hill covered by the snow. She was fifteen, two years younger than Naruto, the name was Asai Sayuri. The girl had long straight brown hair and was quite short even for a teenage female.

Naruto turned to look at the girl, her sharp grey eyes met his and she smiled widely. "Third actually…" The blonde admitted while he looked over the area around them. Everything was white with snow, behind them was a hilly place and in front of them was a large white wasteland. The place was the farthest habitable area in north. It was nearly a thousand miles away from Iwagakure. There were a few small villages and one Tsuchi no Kuni military seaport with a small ninja garrison in that area but otherwise it was pretty desolate.

The third member of their group, a chuunin going by the name Fukuda Tsukasa, spoke with his voice muffled by the scarf he was wearing. The guy was the same age as Sayuri, he had grayish-green eyes and black hair, his hairstyle was similar to the one Uchiha Sasuke had but was much shorter. "It's really cold, what do you want to find here, Yumi-san?"

The fourth and the final member of the group, a woman in her late twenties spoke softly. "Well, at least something worth my effort. I always wanted to study one of those ruins." The woman had shoulder length light brown hair and black eyes. She looked average in all aspects but had a nice character. Her name was Iseya Yumi; she was an archeologist, and the cover for the real reason to why Naruto was here.

The blond teen tried to cover more of his face by his own scarf so it won't be cold and muttered to himself. "Yeah… this place certainly has a lot of history just lying around." The young man raised his voice and continued. "We'll have to walk an hour and half until you'll be able to see it…"

Sayuri's mouth gaped in surprise and then she almost yelled. "Eehhhhh? That's a lot of walking there!"

Naruto looked at her with a tired gaze and inhaled the serene air around them then spoke. "You can carry Iseya-san, if she agrees that is, and we would be able to move much faster." Both Naruto and Tsukasa were carrying large backpacks of the stuff Yumi had. There were her own belongings, things that had to do something with archeology, and some things that she wanted to have in her new home in the village closest to the ruins of an ancient city.

"It certainly would be a lot faster." Tsukasa added not even thinking about the consequences. He and Sayuri had something going between them and the girl usually reacted quite harshly to whatever he said that she didn't like. She was a lot like Sakura in that aspect actually. Naruto sighed and turned away from the younger teens.

The girl scowled making an annoyed face and replied. "You all are evil, evil, inconsiderate people… but fine, I'll do it." She crouched and looked at Yumi. "Get on."

"Are you really gonna be ok? I'm kinda heavy…" The oldest female in the group spoke while slightly blushing.

"See this, guys? She's the only good person here!" Sayuri said while pointing at the direction where Naruto and Tsukasa were standing. Tsukasa was looking surprised while Naruto was guiltily averting his gaze.

"I didn't request something impossible; these bags are at least twice as heavy as she." The blond turned away and started to walk slowly. "Anyway… hurry up, I remember it was you who wanted to get to the village as quickly as possible."

"Haaaaaii, Naruto-sempai!" The girl yelled cheerfully, forgetting her previous mood. She got up with Yumi clinging to her back and leaped after two other teens.

For twenty minutes they were jumping like giant grasshoppers. Normally that should be impossible with all this snow, but that was changed a long time ago when some unknown shinobi invented a method to create a chakra cushion under user's feet that let ninja jump or run on even the softest of snow.

After some jumping they finally could see the ancient city with its buildings covered in snow and icicles. Most of those buildings weren't big, but the huge mounds of white snow suggested that there was a lot of rubble underneath it that previously was parts of those buildings.

Naruto spoke while looking ahead. "I've been to that place a few times. You can't find anything particularly interesting there… mostly rubble, maybe a few ancient machines or a book. Most of the books are unreadable, though."

Since Sayuri and Yumi were in rear, the woman yelled loudly. "But that's good enou-ugh!" Her words were interrupted by a muffled grunt and then a loud scream pierced the air. "Kyyyyaaaaaaa! Sayuri-chan! Please be more careful! I feel like I'll fall any second!"

The blond young man chuckled lightly and continued jumping. Soon he heard Tsukasa speaking behind him with a doubt in his voice. "…but really, is there anything _that_ valuable there, Yumi-san?"

"Of course there is! I was told that locals avoid the place, so there must be at least something interesting since no one ever wondered there."

"Have you ever heard the reason why the locals avoid the place?" Naruto suddenly spoke, no one could see his face right now and he thought that it was good since the expression he wore was quite uncharacteristic for him. "There is a legend… a long time ago at the times even before Rikudou Sennin, the first settlers tried living in those ruins. After a few days everyone had headache and felt nauseous, some of them decided to leave the place. When they came back to check up on the others after some time, everyone was dead without a visible reason. The children of those who left the place were sometimes born with disfigured and ugly bodies. Everyone decided that the place was cursed and it became forbidden to enter those ruins."

"What a horrible story…" Tsukasa mumbled in a barely hearable whisper.

"There's an explanation to this, though." Naruto continued after making sure that Yumi wasn't paying attention and again the chuunins' eyes were focused on his back. "Those are the symptoms and aftereffects of chakra poisoning, and a severe one at that. Two of you knew Kazuma-san, right? A year back, he, Roshi and I were forced to subdue Han. He died shortly after from being exposed to demonic chakra of three Bijuu for far too long."

"That's… horrible actually." Sayuri muttered feeling a bit uncomfortable talking about Han. Han was thought of as the greatest shame of Iwagakure, a shinobi incapable of carrying out his duty no matter how hard he tried. No one had any skill to alter his seal to work like it was supposed to and no one really cared. Naruto, once he got good with fuuinjutsu, tried to have a look only to be sent to the place where sun doesn't shine by the very man he wanted to help.

"No, he knew the risks. Roshi had three tails out, I had seven, and Gobi was fully out."

"Is that fine if we enter them, I wonder…" Yumi was looking at the ruins with a longing look on her then she sighed and turned her head back to two ninja ahead of Sayuri. "Aren't locals gonna get mad at us for breaking this taboo?"

"No. The closest village is pretty far, and no one is going to watch us anyway."

-xxxx-

The village they arrived to was surrounded by thick forest. The buildings tended to be small and rather comfy-looking. The windows were small, the doors as well. Most of the buildings were made from the wood from the surrounding forest. Thought a few had some stones in them. There was a river running through the village, it of course was frozen, though no one had trouble with that.

A few kids played outside and some old man was probably preparing to go hunting. Most of the people in general kept inside, though. There was nothing much to do during winter, besides hunting and fishing.

Speaking of population there was the man that was supposed to meet the four of them. That man was heading to Naruto with his arms spread wide. "Naruto-kun! What a pleasant surprise!" The man was about fifty years old and had a balding head. His hair had long since gone gray either from stress or something other, Naruto didn't know. His name was Kurata Yuudai and he was the only remaining person in the village that Naruto could boast of knowing quite well. The man hugged Naruto as if the young man was his relative whom he missed a lot.

"Yeah, good to see you too, Kurata-san." The blond teenager responded by putting a weak smile on his face.

The man's face was clearly showing that he was surprised to see Naruto here. "So they decided to send you after all." He looked at three companions of the young man skeptically before turning his face to the blond again.

"Yes, this is Iseya Yumi-san, she's the one that you were preparing a house for." The teen gestured at the female archeologist with his hand and waited for Yuudai to respond.

"Nice to meet you." The woman gave a curt bow and smiled sweetly. Sayuri and Tsukasa followed with introductions.

"Kurata Yuudai, pleasure as well. Okay then, come with me." The man made a face as if he remembered something, which he did and motioned for everyone to follow him.

As they were walking, he and Naruto got ahead of everyone so they could make somewhat private conversation. "So, tell me Naruto-kun, have you gotten what you wanted?"

"No. I was… I don't know who they were." The young man mumbled quietly as he made his way to the house three ninja and one civilian would be occupying in the near future.

"…is that so?" Yuudai asked skeptically looking at the teen.

The blonde stayed silent, deciding not to answer. The older man sighed hanging his head and continued walking slowly. "I guess you know better."

It didn't take them too long to get the small hut on the edge of the village. It was made mostly of wood but there were some parts made from stone. The windows had two layers of glass, Naruto didn't doubt that his companions hadn't seen something like this before.

The old man gave the key to Naruto and left four of them alone. Naruto looked at the key and proceeded to open the door while talking. "Get your things unpacked. Sayuri, Tsukasa put chakra surveillance seals around the house just in case. Tune them to alert each of us."

"Hai."

-xxxx-

"There are only two beds!" The young chuunin complained rather angrily.

"Calm down, Asai-san."

"BUT!" Naruto seriously didn't need that now of all times. Of all things the girl had to complain about their lack of beds. He supposed it was to be expected, if only in current situation. In any other circumstances it would be something he had an authority to punish her for, but here sleeping on a futon was unrecommended.

He looked at the oldest female of the group with a tired expression to which she smiled apologetically. The blonde didn't really know why she would look apologetic now, but whatever the reason may be, her expression meant that she would agree with almost anything he suggested. "I assume Iseya-san wouldn't mind taking the small one, you two can take the big bed. I will sleep on the couch."

Sayuri stared at him with an open mouth, then blinked, then flapped her mouth uselessly and finally blushed before stammering out "B-B-B-But that's…"

"Sigh, Fukuda-san."

"Uzumaki-senpai." Naruto looked at the other chuunin strictly his gaze conveying one single though. _Do your duty as a man._ The younger male frowned lightly, then his lips twitched into what could be a smile."Understood."

Sayuri looking at their exchange blushed even deeper crimson at that. "You… I… you couldn't possibly imply that… I… and him… were going to?" By the end of it she looked like that shy girl from his academy class he didn't remember name of.

"Whatever you talking about?" The blonde asked with an absolutely straight face.

"Damn you, Naruto-sempai! Damn you!"

Naruto sighed and looked at what would be sleeping on tonight. The old couch looked ancient. Too ancient for his liking, but the floor would be much worse. Or would it? He looked back at the floor, then at the couch, repeating it several times gave him and answer that couch might be slightly better.

Some minutes later, after both young chuunin left to the room with double bed and Yumi went to her own, the young blonde laid on the old creaking couch in the same room Yumi's bed was. His mind kept going back to the thought that floor might have been better, but then again, the floor would have been colder. Much colder. And he wouldn't have been able to save himself from the cold with a bunch of blankets.

Trying to fall asleep on this couch was hell. Not only was it old and creaky, but it was extremely small. In fact it was so small he risked falling off it when he tried sleeping on his back. And that was problematic, since he didn't enjoy sleeping on his sides even a bit.

He got up and walked to the bucket with water. Naturally, there was no plumbing here and water was brought from wells in the village. Still, Sayuri was so surprised when he told her that it almost seemed like she had never been outside of Iwagakure. Plumbing was not a convenience, it was a luxury anywhere outside of country capitals and major hidden villages. And she acted so surprised…

He drank some water and returned to the couch. He turned in the couch a few times before hearing a sigh from the occupant of the only good bed I this room. After her sigh, Yumi spoke in a quiet voice. "You know, there's enough room for two here. And I wouldn't mind… if we do more than just… you know…"

It was his turn to sigh. But in any case it was better than sleeping in this damn couch. So he got up and walked over to Yumi's bed. And who was he to refuse such a gracious invitation? More so with the way she worded it.

-xxxx-

"_Want to see something great?" Bright smile and equally bright blue eyes, a lot like his own, were what Naruto couldn't take his eyes off._

"_Why not?" The blonde agreed smiling much like the girl in front of him. The next day the both of them would travel back to Iwagakure so he didn't want to leave this place without memories about it. It was the north frontier of civilized world after all._

"_Follow me then." After saying this, the girl took off to the direction of the ruins that the teen saw on his way to the village they were in._

_Several short minutes later both of them were eyeing the ruins of the grand ancient city. The snow covered most of the rubble so the place wasn't as messy as Naruto had thought. The gaping holes of thousands of windows were almost staring at them. The remains of buildings, which looked like teeth of some mythical beast from afar, now looked almost normal, but the style of architecture wasn't the one someone can hope to find in elemental countries anymore._

"_Wow the place is… amazing…" Naruto spoke awed by the view._

_The girl looked at him with her big blue eyes and spoke while smiling slightly. "Yeah… It's forbidden to enter the ruins, though."_

_Naruto looked at her with a questioning gaze. "…no one is watching us, let's go and see it." He started walking into the ruins while the girl was still standing._

_The girl hesitated for some time but then run to Naruto. "…I always wanted to see them anyway. Let's go!" The two of them took off into the ruins._

_Soon they faced a big black stone, there were a lot of unknown characters engraved on it, and it was the only thing without any hints of damage. The size of the thing was quite incredible too, it was at least ten meters tall. That made them both wonder what exactly it was._

"_What is this?..." They asked each other at the same time._

"What is this?" Sayuri asked pointing at the black stone, while she looked at it in awe.

Tsukasa was one to answer. "Some kind of memorial stone… I don't know, I can't read any of those symbols…" He walked closer to it and stared at the characters on it. Naruto kept silent preferring to stay out of the conversation, besides he had already seen the thing two times. There was no need to reacquaint himself with it right now.

Yumi adjusted her hair while walking closer to the stone too. "Yeah, it's memorial stone, there are records of such thing in Ame's capital."

"How do you know? Ame's been closed off for many years now." The brunette asked obviously skeptical.

"As I said: records." The woman shook her head in disbelief. Apparently she expected more insight from the two of them. "Do any of you know that Ame's capital was built on the remains of a similar city?"

"What do you want to say by that?" Sayuri took off her hat and scratched her head, her fingers entangled in the hair while she moved them like a hairbrush.

"Hmmmm… how to put it…" The woman stood there confused for a moment, but then her face assumed expression that Naruto remembered too well on the face of all those who taught him something. "Ame is the most technologically advanced country with Mist being the second… and there are some ruins in Mist too. We may find something interesting here."

"Well, I can't say it's a good plan…" Tsukasa said quietly and looked around. The open holes of the windows and doors, the teeth-like spikes of broken walls, and snow… There was nothing of interest here except the memorial stone. Certainly the architecture was strange but it had no value for anyone other than professional builders.

"Most of the things here seem to be broken. And Naruto-sempai said that he had been here a few times himself, surely if there was anything of importance here he already had let our ninja know." The teen looked at Naruto and he nodded in reply answering his question.

It seems Sayuri's patience has run out, because she rushed off to the stone and started looking at the characters written on it. After a minute or so she yelled. "Naruto-sempai! Come here!"

He walked towards the stone and looked at the girl expectantly. "There's a name scratched on that stone, _Kurata Chidori _it says."

He frowned slightly for a moment, but his expression returned to normal before anyone was able to notice. She was another person he had failed. Only this time it was much more difficult to deal with. He had thought that he became stronger that he could protect anyone he cared for. He didn't and he couldn't. She was killed right under his nose while he was busy fighting another freak of nature.

"Who's that?" Yumi asked coming from behind him.

"My handler…" Naruto couldn't fully hide the sadness in his voice and the woman immediately recoiled.

"Ah… sorry." She blushed and lowered her gaze to the ground. He wasn't sure that she understood what the handler meant, but he guessed that the woman assumed that it was someone important to him.

"Don't be." He said and turned away from the stone.

The others decided that it was better to leave him alone with himself for a moment. Sayuri and Yumi went further into ruins, while Tsukasa decided to explore the closest building.

Naruto sighed and sat by the memorial stone. He looked into the distance remembering the details of her death. They, along with another jounin were sent on infiltration mission into one of Orochimaru's bases.

Chidori as a handler stayed behind and jounin stayed there to protect her. Naruto himself went ahead to the base. He didn't expect the ambush, though. A white haired, green eyed guy, later he learned that his name was Kimimaro, attacked him using his bones as weapons.

Naruto was outclassed, so he used the Fox's chakra. Chidori, like always, maintained the link and didn't let him drown in the intoxicating power of the beast. Then after about ten minutes of fighting, he felt their link shatter and her chakra presence disappear altogether.

He had almost died back then. But Kimimaro was forced to retreat before finishing the blond off. Naruto went to the place where Chidori and jounin were supposed to be. The girl had her head smashed in a bloody mass. The jounin had a slit throat.

Kyuubi healed most of the teen's injuries. And Naruto returned to Iwa bearing the news of his failure, ambush and her death.

He sat there, near the memorial stone with his shoulders slumped and feeling like he had just woke up with a terrible hangover. It was better when he was slave… it was much simpler, much easier way to live. The work was hard, he was treated worse, but he was used to that. And this… this sudden, abrupt loneliness after finding someone who could make him feel wanted and appreciated… it was killing him.

He remembered something the old monkey told him. _You should kill your emotions, before they kill you. If it's too late… then you must endure. Stone endures, stone doesn't bleed, stone doesn't weep for those that are dead. So… endure, Naruto. Be that stone._

Roshi was a wise man, he knew what he said. And what he said was truth, if he could endure this and live through it he would become a stronger person. He won't let her death be meaningless.

On the other hand there was the Will of Fire. He still remembered it; nothing will change the fact that thirteen years of his life were spent in Konoha. The Will of Fire, however didn't offer anything better. _As long as there are leaves in the forest, the fire will burn. _As long as there were memories of her in his heart, she still was alive… if only in his heart. He supposed that this was at least half true, but it still sounded so…

He heard a sound of someone running. The person was obviously not trying to conceal himself or herself. The blond listened more carefully and decided that it was probably Sayuri. "Naruto-sempai! There are unknown chakra signatures further in the ruins! There are four of them, judging by the level of chakra they all are at least jounin level ninja." He guessed correctly, it was Sayuri. It was interesting how she was able to sense them when it was Tsukasa who had such abilities. He looked at her with that question obvious from the look on his face. The girl answered looking more serious than usual. "Tsukasa came to us not too long ago."

Naruto nodded in confirmation, feeling rather foolish for not thinking of that possibility, and followed after Sayuri as soon as she headed into the direction where those signatures would probably be.

-xxxx-

A young redheaded woman stood on one side of operational table and Orochimaru stood on the other. They were working on one of the more interesting specimen. And by working it meant dissecting. The girl frowned thinking about something and spoke in a quiet voice.

"Orochimaru-sama, I must ask, was it wise to send her? She is not the most subtle of people and I think Uzumaki could actually overpower her in a straight fight."

The Snake Sannin looked up with an unreadable expression on his face. "And who do you suppose I send? Kimimaro? He is slowly dying, and I still need him. A trip to the North will shorten whatever time he has left. I can't let Kaguya bloodline die out, and you know it more than anyone. It's too valuable. You and Kabuto are out of question. Juugo is uncontrollable without Kimimaro and Suigetsu is just uncontrollable."

The man turned to the subject on the table. His hand went rummaging through the specimen's intestines and came out with what she supposed could be his kidney. Orochimaru gave it to the girl and she laid it on a small table next to the operation table.

"True, but…" She frowned again.

"Your personal dislike for her aside, what are your thoughts on her?" The pale man said without looking up.

"She is skilled, but she is not subtle. Not even in the least. All her illusions are as intrusive as it gets too…"

Before she had a chance to finish, her master interrupted. "…which makes them that much powerful, a non-intrusive illusion will fall apart on itself. You should know that."

The girl blinked at that. Yes, non-intrusive illusions like for example _False Surroundings Technique _were easy to break and the less intrusive illusion became the less stable it was. That was the reason that _Tsukiyomi _technique of the Sharingan was almost unbreakable. It was as intrusive as it could be, it replaced the reality for the victim. If it was not for the Sharingan it wouldn't have been possible due to the monstrous chakra drain, but the cursed eye somehow bypassed it.

"Yes, Orochimaru-sama, but having at least some subtlety helps. Then there are her summons, they are of course a force to be reckoned with, but Uzumaki can easily overpower them."

"If he uses Kyuubi." The older man corrected her.

And although she had to agree with it, she wasn't so sure of those summons. Sure they were big and powerful, but they were as smart as the one controlling them was. Still, Uzumaki Naruto wasn't that good without Kyuubi, just about regular jounin level. Skilled, but regular jounin. Those were numerous in Iwa, not as numerous as chuunin, but Iwa had much more jounin than Konoha.

"Yes. Without the Kyuubi he is not much of a threat, but I must remind you that he is able of using three of its tails without going berserk."

"Then it is fortunate that we have killed that girl, with her he would be that much stronger. We need him strong, but not too strong. He is needed in a condition in which we can put him down, should something go against our expectations."

Ah, that girl. She remembered reports of how Yonbi jinchuuriki, some irrelevant jounin and Uzumaki with the help of that girl subdued Gobi. Now that was a display of strength, and she had to agree, if that girl was still alive it would mean a world of problems for them should any of their plans go not the way it was intended.

"Yes, Orochimaru-sama."

"How are your studies going?" The former member of Sannin asked with his hand waiting for something.

_Oh, I forgot!_

It was unadvised to keep Orochimaru waiting. And she just did that. She handed the man a small glass tube with a sheepish and a bit frightened look on her face before answering his question. "I think I upped the success chance to sixty nine percent, but it is so only if we use…"

That was a major breakthrough, considering the previous success chance was only fifty percent. Still finding someone with that good of regeneration would be difficult. Kimimaro had one, but he was the exact reason she was conducting this research.

"So you aren't past the limitations yet. Let's hope Kabuto has some good news for me."

Kabuto. Oh, how she hated that guy. While she was more of a surgeon with her research and creations, he was a butcher. A faceless, merciless butcher. She had seen enough of those in her short lifetime to be sick of them already. And the fact that he wasn't evil or megalomaniacal like Orochimaru, but just wanted to learn about things didn't help it even a bit. In fact, it only made him so much more despicable. A scientist mustn't be like that, screamed her heart and her mind agreed with it.

She sighed and went back to paying close attention to what Orochimaru was doing. Dwelling on such things brought her nothing. And it helped that what her master was doing was pretty educational in its own sense. She still had so much to learn from him.

-xxxx-

And then I had a providence! That scene with Orochimaru came to this chapter almost in the last second. I can safely say that it made everything much easier for me, and much more logical in the long run.

**A bit of trivia:** this chapter was the first I've written for this fic, originally I wanted to start the story from this point, but I actually had some sense in me and wrote those four chapters leading to this one.

Don't forget to review. The previous chapter got only two reviews on the first day, but tons of alerts and favorites. In fact, I won't hide it, from 14 alerts and 17 favs, it went to almost triple the amount in one month. And reviews? They didn't start until much later.

**P.S.** You know that feel when an author writes something deliberately leaving out details to surprise readers later and you already know what this surprise would be? Yeah, I have that feel pretty often. In fact, I can predict plot twists with 70% success rate nowadays. Guess I'm getting genre savvy. How's that for diversity of modern fics?


	6. Chapter 6: The Face of My Enemy

I have millions of excuses as to why this chapter is so late, but you all know that I'm just lazy fuck, so go ahead and read it if you still remember what's this story about.

-xxxx-

Chapter 6: The Face of My Enemy

-xxxx-

Tayuya smiled as she gathered the last of her things in improvised sort of lab that had been their hideout until the time the target arrived. The target, Uzumaki Naruto, was confirmed to be present in these very ruins half an hour by Kazuo, their sensor.

The whole mission was a big gamble on Orochimaru's part. For it to succeed they needed to bring the attention of local Iwa garrison to themselves, they had to make sure that Uzumaki was sent to investigate and finally she personally had to find out whether the thing that bitch made worked on Uzumaki.

There was a lot they had to confirm. Fortunately for them, when things concerned the northern border, Iwa sent those of their jounin who had been here before more than once. There were only two people like that in Iwagakure. Yoton no Roshi and Uzumaki Naruto. Since the redheaded jinchuuriki was in a very problematic situation at the moment, which was partly Orochimaru's doing, Iwa sent Uzumaki.

And with all that time on her hands, Tayuya could play around with her new summon for a while. It was far from being completed, just like her other project. The other project was in a usable state at the moment, though, and this one was still far from being anything but something she worked on in her free time.

The young woman exited the building and activated the seal that would make sure everything blew up in an hour or so. She made her way to her three subordinates that were already outside the ruins and stopped near Kazuo who spoke upon noticing her. "Tayuya-sama, everything is ready."

The brown eyed female looked at Kazuo and the turned, her gaze to the other two, Youji and San. Two of them were dragging a bundle that was her unfinished summon. She scowled and yelled at them. "Is it that fucking hard to not drag it? If you are men, then show some fucking strength!" She turned her attention back to Kazuo and spoke. "You're in charge of keeping the thing safe. Fail to do so, I'll gut you myself. Is that clear?"

"Crystal clear ma'am."

-xxxx-

Four ninja… three of them looked pretty normal, but the fourth one… Naruto had seen her before a few times, and those weren't pleasant memories at all. The redheaded girl was one of the sound five, the elites of Orochimaru and Oto. He met her on his first mission as a ninja of Iwa, then met her again and again. Needless to say, both of them knew quite a lot about the other.

But the past was the past and it was a tale for a different time. For now Naruto just observed what they were doing. Two ninja were dragging some kind of bundle, the girl and the remaining one were talking about something. The bundle must have been the reason those four were here in the first place. If it was so, then he needed that bundle.

The blonde had Sayuri go back to Tsukasa and Yumi for the time being, telling her to make sure that the archeologist got out of the ruins safely and without any problem.

He spied on the enemy a couple minutes more until they were ready to set off. Something about the leader's behavior seemed a little off. Perhaps they noticed him after all, but decided to not let it show. Tayuya was a little reluctant to turn her back on the place where he was hiding too.

Naruto shrugged and drew his hands into his tools pouch. Withdrawing a couple of smoke bombs he threw them into the direction of enemy ninja. Finally, after making a couple more hand seals initial setup was finished and he shunshin-ed to where the sound nins were. Taking out two kunai he rushed right at the enemy.

-xxxx-

Tsukasa was in a bit of a bind. On one hand he wanted to go and help Uzumaki-sempai, on the other his duty commanded him to protect their client. It didn't help that Sayuri went to help sempai and he was left here.

He was a sensor type here and was able to feel what was going on in the ruins. So when he felt Sayuri heading towards him he sighed with mixed feeling of relief and worry. Relief, because the brunette was heading here, and worry, because their leader wanted to take on enemy all by himself, if what he assumed was right.

Not willing to waste time he turned to the female archeologist and spoke. "Yumi-san, you should leave the place. I'll accompany you and make sure nothing happens."

Just as he finished talking Sayuri landed near him and said. "I'll go with you until we make sure Yumi-san is safe."

"What about Uzumaki-sempai?"

That was the one thing that worried him the most at the current time. The chakra signatures that he felt seemed to be jounin level. Yet, sometimes he was wrong. Uzumaki-sempai was the prime example of that. Normally he had so much chakra that he could be mistaken for a Kage or someone with power rivaling Kage, since no normal ninja had that much chakra.

The blonde was by no means normal, though, and he was more of exception that validated the general rule. Still, hoping that he could take four ninja all by himself was a bit of wishful thinking, he guessed. The times when he was an unstoppable juggernaut had long since passed, if he was to consider year a long time.

The brunette scratched her head in thought and spoke. "He told me to return once we took care of her."

"You think he's going to hold out for that long?"

Sayuri took offense at that. From their many times of working together with Uzumaki Naruto the girl had formed a certain 'opinion' of him. And when that girl had an opinion she was going to be very stubborn about that.

"Hey now, Naruto-sempai is plenty strong!"

Glaring girlfriends aside, he wasn't so sure of his superior, even if Sayuri had 'opinion'. Many times he had seen skilled and experienced jounin being overrun by numbers. Considering that enemies were probably on roughly the same level, it wasn't looking very optimistic.

"He sent me away precisely because he wanted to fight them alone." The girl continued irritably fingering lock of her hair.

Well, if she put it that way he couldn't really deny that request. He turned to their client and spoke. "I guess we shouldn't waste time then. Yumi-san come here, I'll carry you."

Before the woman could even take a step Sayuri interjected and spoke her mind. "Actually, it would be better if I did that. I'm stronger and faster and have more stamina than you." Seeing his obvious annoyance the girl smirked and added just to get further rise out of him. "Oh, and I guess I'm smarter too."

Oh, he knew what this was about. She still wasn't over the last night. He honestly didn't know why she had to be such an ass when it came to her unexplored places. The teen sighed knowing that he won't be able to do anything about her vindictive mood when she was in it.

"Fine, whatever, I don't care. Just do it quickly." He said and went ahead while Yumi was trying to settle comfortably on Sayuri's back.

-xxxx-

Fighting in smoke reminded him of the turning point of his life - the battle at the bridge in Wave. It wasn't a good memory, but Zabuza's way of fighting was a good one. Sometimes Naruto used smoke bombs like this time, sometimes Kirigakure no Jutsu. In current circumstances where he had very little liquid to work with smoke bombs were preferable.

The young man sprinted to the place where the two ninja carrying the bundle were very likely to be. He hoped to secure the bundle from the start and let himself go a little crazy later. He couldn't risk damaging whatever was inside it.

As expected, both men were where he predicted them to be. He kicked legs under the thinner one and kicked the other one in solar plexus. Making a single seal he had his clones take the bundle away. Still, it was far from the end, it seemed.

As soon as his clones and the bundle left the smoke and headed for ruins, both of them were taken down by some sort of wind attack. He didn't recognize that particular attack, but there were many things that Oto ninja used and he never seen before.

The blonde ducked under a kick coming from behind him, took his attacker's leg and threw the man. The teenage blonde closed his eyes and tried sensing all too familiar presence of Tayuya. She was quite ways away from where he expected her to be, but that hardly mattered. He would herd them into the ruins in any case.

Ruins would be quite an advantageous terrain for him and that was even without including the clones he left there earlier into the equation. Ruins were a place where sneak attacks would be at their best. The hard part was getting his enemy into the ruins. He had a plan for that, though.

The young man rolled up his right sleeve and unwrapped the bandage that was around his hand. Naruto bit his finger and smeared the blood across the underside of the bandage. He then began doing hand seals in fast succession. The blonde finished just in time to avoid being smashed by a club of one of Tayuya's summons. The smoke created by summoning jutsu he just performed helped him escape the sight of enemy's summon.

Still, escaping the attack was not enough. After all, Tayuya had three of those ogres. The young man ducked under punch of another ogre who was immediately bit into by his own summon, a transparent tiger.

That tiger was a creation of his, a result of a year's work, and his admittedly good 'education' after arriving to Iwa. Technically it wasn't that much of a summon, since the only part he summoned was seals. The technique involved three steps: summoning the sealing array, channeling the wind natured chakra into it and finally infusing a shadow clone that would serve as creature's brain.

The tiger tore off a hand from the ogre with claws but then the summon with a club hit the beast with its weapon. The transparent animal flew at Naruto who was running to the place where Tayuya was at the moment. The young man didn't exactly expect such a development and had no chance to evade the tiger flying at him.

The blonde teen braced for impact and was sent flying along with his summon. Both landed onto the ground moments later and rolled for several more. Naruto got up in time to block a kick from the ninja that Tayuya was talking to some minutes ago.

His tiger jumped at the enemy ninja and was about to bite a chunk of his meat off him when the third of Tayuya's summons slammed itself into it. Naruto quickly took off in the direction where Tayuya was, leaving his summon to fend for itself.

The young blonde made a couple of seals and the bandage that contained his summon solidified and became as sharp as any blade. The two shinobi that were carrying the bundle earlier moved to flank him from both sides. He threw a few kunai at the left one and jumped to the right one slashing him with bandage-blade. The man parried with kunai in his hand and tried to slash Naruto. He was successful, but that success came at cost of his life.

The young man let the kunai dig into his side while he clutched the man's arm that held weapon in it. Naruto's cloth sword entered the man's right lung from bellow. The blade went through the left side of his waist and upwards to the lung. The blonde had no time to observe the enemy ninja's widening eyes and blood that began flowing from his mouth, when he sensed the other ninja coming from behind him.

Naruto violently pulled out the blade from the dying man in order to block whatever was heading towards his back. Judging by the sound, shuriken were the likeliest guess. As he swung the blade using only the characteristic sound as his guide, he was surprised to see the other man swinging a kunai infused with wind chakra.

The cloth he used as blade was cut in two and the blonde jumped away just in time to not lose his whole hand. The wound he received was not that deep, but the thought that he was careless enough to nearly lose an arm troubled him a little. The situation was not a good one. Still, by the looks of it, his summon managed to dispel two of Tayuya's ogres and lead the remaining one and the sensor ninja into the ruins.

Nevertheless Tayuya was the most dangerous of his enemies. Dodging wind blades his adversary released, Naruto headed to where the redhead was. The girl was well-aware of his approach and threw kunai at him forcing the blonde to get closer to the wind user chasing him. The teen made three clones to occupy his pursuer and began doing hand seals.

Unfortunately for him, those clones didn't last long. The wind user was stronger than he had initially thought and took care of clones in one second with a single wind jutsu. Yet Naruto had been prepared from a development like that. The teen stopped his process of making hand seals with his hands remaining in ox position.

The blonde started sucking in the air and all objects in front of him. The other wind user had no choice but hopelessly stumble while being pulled towards Naruto. When the man was close enough, Naruto released the final hand seal and exhaled all air he had been sucking into his lungs. The man put his hands up to protect himself even though he probably knew it was useless.

Naruto didn't look at his handiwork already knowing what the result would be and turned to where Tayuya was. It seemed that his plan was succeeding. The redhead was standing near the building playing her flute. The tune was familiar and the teen suspected why, still he couldn't act on his suspicions when a part of wall of one of the buildings suddenly shot towards Tayuya.

"Shit!"

The Oto girl barely had time to see that coming and little to no time to prepare. The newly made horizontal stone pillar slammed into the redhead with full force and debris flew in all directions. Naruto headed to the ruins in time to see Sayuri walking to where Tayuya was supposed to be.

"How was that, Sempai?"

The rubble shifted revealing transformed Oto ninja. Tayuya's hair turned lighter red almost becoming pink in color, her cap was long gone her head now crowned by six horns and her skin turned brown. She spit the blood from her mouth.

"I'll show you how to do that, you man-faced whore."

Naruto knew that he shouldn't, but his eyes turned to look at Sayuri. The girl wasn't all that man-faced, she looked more like a type that would be really popular with other females of questionable sexual orientation. Admonishing himself for taking his eyes off the enemy, Naruto's gaze returned to the redhead.

…who was done doing hand seals and slammed her palm onto the ground.

"Kuchiyose: Demonic Beast of Thousand Evils!"

-xxxx-

Tayuya gazed at Iwa ninja from the top of her summon. It was big, it was clumsy, but it could live through almost anything. Three years' worth of experiments turned out successful only recently and she was genuinely proud of the result.

The Beast was made from bodies of dead ninja sewn together. She didn't count how many there was, but there had to be quite a lot. She had some parts covered with improvised armor, like the Beast's 'fists' or 'legs'. It was fortunate that she was able to prevent the decay. The seals that made the summon move also took care of any rot.

The construct was simple. The center was a metal 'skeleton' inscribed with seals and such which in turn was surrounded by bodies. The surface of the Beast was covered with reinforced metal net that was inscribed with seals as well, and served as a sort of 'skin' for the Beast.

It was by no means the best construct she had thought of, but it was the most stable one at the moment. There was a lot of room for improvement. She still had to research Suna puppetry to finish that, though. She wanted it to be able to perform ninjutsu, she wanted it to be much bigger, she wanted it to be less clumsy, she wanted many things and she would have them in due time.

Tayuya turned her attention to Uzumaki. His eyes were slowly turning red. She couldn't believe that he had done in Youji and maimed San without his demon. It seemed he was stronger than Orochimaru predicted. Uzumaki wasn't that impressive most of the time. In all of their previous three encounters he relied solely on demon. Still, those were when the other blonde was still around.

She began playing the flute to direct her summon before she ran out of time. There was still the matter of her mission and for that she needed to get close to the blonde. The beast slammed its hand where the man-faced chick was a moment before. It still was pretty slow and that would require the most of her attention when she was finished with her mission here.

Uzumaki was running on the wall heading to her, the brown haired bitch was on the opposite side of the street doing the same thing. The Beast slammed both buildings toppling their remains. The Iwa jounin managed to not lose his balance and continued on his track towards her, the chuunin bitch however was falling with the remains of the wall.

Uzumaki jumped towards the Beast and with a lucky movement Tayuya managed to catch him in grip of her summon. She guessed knocking him out for now would be fine. Yet somehow he was not bothered by the situation.

"Sayuri, fire!"

_Fire? Why… dammit! He's water user! _

The largest problem here was that Uzumaki's hands were free to do anything. He was much better with water than wind, yet he didn't have any water here, although there was a lot of snow around. She supposed the fire could melt the snow, but something was off about this.

_Wait, it's impossible to melt snow so fast… and it burns…_

"Katon: Great Dragon's Flame Breath!"

Tayuya willed the Beast to jump just in time to not be hit by a fire jutsu the little bitch released. Yet she didn't include one thing in equation: Uzumaki. The blonde was finished with hand seals and exhaled a large cloud of some sort of stinky gas.

The blonde bastard must have had some kind of suicidal streak in him. When the gas contacted flames and exploded it engulfed the whole of the Beast together with Uzumaki. The redhead herself was only mildly affected on top of her twelve meters tall summon. She was shaken and nearly fell from the force of the explosion but was otherwise unharmed, since the summon took the most damage for her.

Just when the Beast was about to land onto the remains of a building it toppled over a few seconds ago it somehow was dragged to the ground and began falling in a way that would have been called face first had it had a face. Tayuya jumped off her summon into the ruins. She whirled around to see what it was that forced the Beast to fall and found a transparent tiger the size of a one story building tearing into her summon's 'leg'.

The redhead was ready to play the flute again to shake off offending 'animal', but found herself surrounded by at least a dozen of Uzumaki's clones. It seemed that she had to leave her summon if she wanted to get out of this shit.

Shadow Clones the blonde was using were usually reckless by their nature if not outright suicidal, so she didn't have that much of a hard time dispelling the majority of them. When the last clone dissipated, leaving only a small cloud of smoke behind, the blonde had finally arrived.

Uzumaki didn't look like he just survived an explosion that would've killed any normal man. His shoulder was bleeding, but that was about the only major injury on him. His standard winter issue Iwa jounin uniform was torn up in a few places including the right shoulder where it also was stained with blood. His orange scarf was gone exposing a long scar across his face. From what she knew that scar was Kimimaro's doing.

"It seems Kimimaro did his job fucking well. To think he was able to leave a scar on a goddamned jinchuuriki…" The redhead liked her lips and hissed. "Makes me jealous."

Yes, she was damn jealous. She was not made for that kind of power. She could command comparable amount of power but never wield it herself. She was a thinker, Kimimaro wasn't. Kimimaro was a simple kind of guy, you gave him a task and he did his fucking best to complete that task. And his 'fucking best' was lethal, unlike her.

Tayuya was usually sent on delicate missions that required precision, even though she wasn't a precision kind of person. She was anything but precise and subtle. She was blunt in her words and actions. Yet Orochimaru somehow decided that she was the right person for those kinds of tasks. Maybe he did know the best. She managed to accomplish most of them, after all.

-xxxx-

Naruto stared at the redhead. His thoughts turned to the scar on his face. He lifted his left hand and traced it feeling the rough texture of healed up skin. It wasn't just a scar, it was a reminder that Kyuubi left him so he never forgot that day.

"They say that wounds from those with enough hate never stop bleeding… it seems he had enough hate to leave a scar on a host." The blonde gave the Oto ninja a twisted smile. "Want me to give you one?"

"And why the fuck are you feeling this generous, Shitface?" The redhead cocked her head to the side showing a mock-puzzled expression on it.

"I've lost my scarf somewhere here because of your damn monster."

She wanted to drag out the time. He would give her that, besides he had the same goal anyway. When the remains of the buildings collapsed under the monster's punches most of the clones he hid there were dispelled, those left were mostly gone after the explosion. The dozen left were taken care of by Tayuya.

So here he was, forced to wait until Sayuri did her magic and worked instead of his clones. She was a bright girl, knew quite a bit of ninjutsu and was even able to perform both fire and earth techniques with equal skill.

He couldn't say the same about himself. His water manipulation skill was advanced even for most jounin of Kiri, his wind skill however lagged behind. After Chidori was killed he had to somehow compensate for not being able to use nearly as much of Kyuubi's power as he did before. He trained his wind affinity and his kenjutsu skill. Still, those were far from where he wanted them. He improved greatly in last four months, since he had a sort of vacation, but even then, his previous level of strength was ways away from him.

"Well, what did you expect? Suck it up, cock sucker. You're stronger than Orochimaru expected you to be." The redhead sneered at the end, right at 'Orochimaru' part.

"Of course I am. Did he expect me to sit doing nothing for six months?"

Six months ago was the last time he encountered an Oto ninja on a mission until this day. And even then he didn't think he left anyone alive back then, so Orochimaru's information must have been even more outdated, or he purposefully left the redhead out of the loop.

Either way it mattered very little to him. He cut down one guy and hurt the other enough to disable him for the rest of the battle. Seeing as his summoned elemental Tiger returning just at the right time meant that Tayuya's other summons and the remaining guy were taken care of. So if the redhead wanted to drag out time it didn't matter. There was no way she could escape right now.

Still, strangely enough it seemed as if she wasn't really trying to win here. Normally she would show a lot more effort than that. Maybe it was the fact that because of Orochimaru's misinformation she underestimated him, maybe it was something other. He had no idea. Nevertheless, things would become clear once she was captured.

A strange sound of earth shifting caught his attention interrupting his thoughts. Sayuri must have been approaching their position if that was any indication. Fortunately, Tayuya didn't notice that. Naruto learned of it pretty late in his life, but he seemed to have better hearing than most ninja.

"Still, isn't this a nice little reunion we have here?" The blonde spoke with a twisted smile to hopefully help Sayuri in her stealthy approach by using his voice to try hiding whatever noise she was making.

When Tayuya was about to reply a pair of hands shot from the ground and gripped the redhead's ankles pulling her into the ground. A moment later only sound ninja's head was above the ground and the Iwa chuunin was standing above her panting.

The girl's clothing was burnt up in places, but she looked generally unhurt. Finally having caught her breath, Sayuri straightened and looked at Naruto with accusing glare. Finding him unrepentant she sighed and spoke.

"Really, Naruto-sempai, what kind of attack that was? There are far more effective ways to kill oneself."

The blonde shrugged and walked towards Tayuya's head that was sticking from the ground. "Well, we're both unharmed, right?"

"I had to put out fire on my clothes!"

Not paying any attention to angry chuunin Naruto rummaged in his tool pouch and took out a single paper tag. Slapping it onto the redhead's forehead he finally let himself relax and sat onto the ground. The tag put the one it was used on into unconsciousness, unless they were actively moving their limbs or otherwise doing something strenuous, so it didn't work in the mid battle, but was useful for this kind of situations.

Tayuya's summoned monster dispelled as did his tiger. Having got his memories back the young man was displeased to learn that remaining sound ninja managed to get away with the bundle, whatever that bundle was. Well, it was past point when he could do anything about it, so he would have to just get the information about that bundle from Tayuya.

"Pull her out." He got up preparing the wire to tie up the redhead. "Where's Fukuda-san anyway?"

He was a little troubled by the absence of his other charge, but not to the point to worry about it during the battle. Truthfully both chuunin under his command were good at surviving, which Sayuri proved by being unharmed after that explosion.

"He went after the guy that escaped probably." The girl answered while dragging the sound ninja from her hole in the ground.

The blonde teen blinked in surprise. The tiger's memories didn't have any images of Tsukasa. It either meant that something happened with him while he was on the way to the place or he was a tad too late to the party.

"Aren't you worried for him?" He said while meticulously tying up Tayuya.

"Why? You think a seriously injured Oto ninja could take him down?" Sayuri asked with somewhat insulted and irritated voice.

Naruto shrugged at the girl's tone. Anything might have happened, and while he wasn't a worrywart, unexpected of things tended to happen at worst of times. "Shit happens?"

-xxxx-

Roshi had the experience of being hunted like an animal before. It happened during the third Shinobi World War. Konoha's allies, Takigakure sent their own jinchuuriki, of Nanabi no less, after him in the late stages of war.

He had to hide from the other host for three months in wilderness far away from any of Iwa outposts. Approaching any of them would have become a certain death of people stationed there, since the Nanabi carrier would have used the chance to attack him. Roshi tried luring the other jinchuuriki to Konoha, Suna and even their own allies' Kumo's outposts, castles, and camps. He was unsuccessful to say the least.

Oonoki almost declared him a missing nin, but he was saved by his still alive back then wife, who happened to be Nidaime's niece. She talked Oonoki down and kept him from doing the deed and signing the paper confirming that Yoton no Roshi has indeed deserted in the middle of the war.

Thinking back, he could've sent a message with bird or something along the lines. He however, was very stressed back then and his biggest concern was evading the Nanabi host and not dying. In the end, he never met the other jinchuuriki. Due to the losses caused to Iwa's armies by a single shinobi, future Yondaime Hokage, Kumo chickened out and eventually Iwa too was forced to sign the peace treaty. A few days later the forces of both sides were withdrawn from former enemy territories and the war officially ended.

Now he was facing a similar situation. He was being hunted again. This time his chances were even smaller even if it wasn't the middle of the war. Akatsuki were not a force to be trifled with. The single fact that someone like Sasori of the Red Sands, the man who made the third Kazekage 'disappear', was among their ranks was enough a proof of that fact.

Roshi sighed, his chances might have been bigger with Sasori on his tail than the two who were after him this time around. He remembered them both from that one time they came after the payment for the job Sasori did. Hoshigaki Kisame, the Monster of the Hidden Mist, the man said to rival tailed beast in chakra level, the inheritor of Samehada, sword rumored to have been made with help of vast amount of chakra from Sanbi. His partner was no better. Uchiha Itachi, the man who singlehandedly slaughtered the most feared clan in Konoha. Senju were not much of a clan anymore, one person was not enough to be a clan. So yes, Uchiha Itachi was the greatest of Konoha's traitors, surpassing even Orochimaru. His strength no doubt surpassed Orochimaru's as well.

Both of the messages he sent must have been intercepted by his two pursuers. And to think he actually thought he could disappear in forests of the southern Tsuchi no Kuni without making a trace. It seemed someone knew precisely where he had been hiding and gave that information to Akatsuki, or someone in Akatsuki had that great of tracking ability.

It seemed that shit would be hitting the fan soon enough. For now he was lucky enough to have avoided his 'hunters'. The keyword was lucky, he was no Naruto, and he wasn't sure that even Naruto's luck would have held out that long. At best he had a couple of weeks, at worst he had a couple of days.

He had a few last resort plans in the case that the worst scenario happened, but he was not so keen on going through with them, if they did happen. He had his pride and to him it was a little more important than his life.

In any case, he still had some time.

_Hopefully, I can come up with something better until then._

-xxxx-

So, tell me did you like the fight scene? I spent a whole lot of time on that one. I'm still not content with it but it'll have to do, since I doubt I will ever be content with it. How do you like summons? Naruto will gain three more through the course of this fic and Tayuya maybe one or two.

**A bit of trivia:** the first 2000 something words long rendition of fight scene was deleted soon after I wrote it. Naruto was too OOC for his OOC character I've 'established' (not really) in this fic, Tayuya's underlings were too incompetent, and there was too little gore. I still think there is too little gore here (if you don't count Tayuya's summon as gore), but that one instance of it pretty much let me finish the final version of the fight. Then some things were just silly, I toned it down and now it seems to go much better here. And there was just one plain stupid scene with Kyuubi. I'm glad I had enough common sense in me to delete it as soon as possible. Sometimes, when I read things I wrote like 3 or more months before, I want to know what the hell I was on while writing those.

**And yeah, snow burns under certain conditions (Like being dry, I think. I don't really remember. I think they showed it on discovery or something.)**

**P.S.** So guys, we've had semi-canonic time travel movie (which sucked IMO), and now we'll have alternative universe movie. What're your thoughts on that?

**P.P.S.** I've just posted a Bleach Ichigo/Tatsuki oneshot, go read it if you like the pairing.

**P.P.P.S.** People tell me my summary sucks, can anyone help with it? Please?


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